Well, my "strangest place for an empeg" has come to an end, at least temporarily. My empeg is dead.

Not the empeg's fault, and not the bike install's fault, either. More like an act of God.

I stopped at the local NAPA store to get a new alternator for my car, and not wanting to leave the empeg sitting out in plain sight (I hadn't yet followed msaeger's suggestion of getting a blank plate to hide the empeg while it was on my bike ) I stuffed it down in one of my saddlebags, under some clothes, figured it would be pretty safe that way.

While I was in the store, the wind came up, blew the bike over and it landed on the saddlebag containing the empeg -- probably about an 18" fall with minimal padding protecting the empeg.

Now, it no longer boots up. The screen lights up, shows the bootup logo, but that's as far as it goes. It acts just like a hard drive cable has come unplugged. That is not the case, however -- I have my empeg disassembled in front of me as I type this, and I can power it up and hear the hard drive spin, but no boot. Below is what Hyperterminal displays when I try to boot. I have no idea what any of it means... can anybody translate this into words of one syllable or less that I might be able to understand?

==========================================================================

empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.03
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux................................... done, booting the kernel.

Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg45 ([email protected]) (gcc ver
sion 2.95.2 19991024 (release)) #29 Tue Mar 27 18:21:21 BST 2001
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 7, serial number 80000267)
Command line: mem=12m temp=42
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 11008k/12M available (956k code, 20k reserved, 296k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is ffffffff ' '
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
Could not find CS4231A (version=80)
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004500).
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
Probing primary interface...
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3333
smc_init couldn't find card
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

==========================================================================

Given the circumstances, I would guess that my hard drive is hosed. I notice that it seems to rattle a bit when I shake it or even turn it over in my hands. And while it is still technically under warranty, I wouldn't feel right about asking for warranty repair. If it doesn't work after falling onto a concrete sidewalk, that's hardly a failure of workmanship or materials...

Anyway, if anybody has any magic ideas about bringing my empeg back to life, I'm all ears.

tanstaafl.


"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Sorry to hear that...

Given the circumstances, I would guess that my hard drive is hosed.

Yes, the last couple of lines of the log indicate that the kernel is unable to boot from the hard drive. If that's the only problem then it's not too bad - a replacement hard drive is significantly cheaper than the whole empeg...

Borislav

It sounds like the hard drive cable has partially come off - hence it's affecting other things on the 5v bus (the ethernet, for example).

I seriously doubt that either the empeg or the hdd is permanently damaged. email support and we'll try and sort you out.

Hugo

probably about an 18" fall with minimal padding protecting the empeg.

Mr. Murphy strikes again... bad luck..

I'm more and more amazed that my MkI didn't suffer more than it did when dropped (inside
the original bag) from shoulder height onto concrete (don't carry too much loose stuff in one
hand without having the hand through the loop...) All it did was bust off the top left corner of
the fascia and bust the zipper of the bag (the corner of the fascia sort of cut off some of the 'hooks').

Some disks (I can't recall the brand) do rattle straight from the factory, even seen an attached
note stating that it was normal, so that doesn't necessarily mean it's dead...

/Michael

the travelstar one I just got and the one that was in the empeg both rattle

mine fell about 6 foot from an overhead locker in a plane in its bag that was in a rucksack and it survived unscathed

...Might just be a loose cable on the HDD's - that's actually more likely then a completely toast HDD... You should send an email to the support team and ask for thier suggestion, maybe suggestion that it might be the drive calble and what can you do about it..
-mark

...proud to have owned an Empeg since 00287

That's what I thought, too. But I chatted with Doug about it, and he's reasonably sure it's not the cable. He did check it, at both ends.

___________
Tony Fabris

..Might just be a loose cable on the HDD's

That was my first thought. However, I've been there before a couple months ago, got permission from empeg to open the case and not void the warranty, and sure enough, the cable was loose - don't remember if it was at the hard drive or the motherboard end. I reattached the cable, and then hot-glued it at both ends to prevent a recurrence.

That worked pretty well -- as I type this, the empeg is sitting on my desk, disembowled, with the hard drive mounting plataform sitting on top of the case and both cable ends thoroughly hot-glued to their respective attachment points.

The drive does spin up and not make any bad noises. It just doesn't seem to read anything from the drive, as though the head actuating mechanism wasn't working. However, that would appear not to be the case because I can hear the heads seeking when I first power it up. The drive remains spinning until I pull the power.

The empeg hit the ground at the worst possible angle -- the shock would have been absolutely perpendicular to the axis of the drive spindle, which, of course, is the direction we're supposed to avoid.

It's not a huge tragedy -- worst case scenario 20 GB Travelstars are going for $75--$125 on ebay (brand new never used); and at least one internet store I have bookmarked sells them for $111 plus shipping. 20 GB is surely the "sweet spot" these days in terms of price/storage. And this will give me an excuse to re-rip my music and really do it right this time and get the tags right, and organize the playlists better, etc. I've been giving it a lot of thought over the past few months, and will do things quite a bit differently than I did the first time around.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Have you checked for loose master / slave jumpers? See this thread.

Good suggestion, Rod, but he's running single-drive. No jumpers at all.

He's going to post here in a minute and tell everyone what it was (he fixed it)...

___________
Tony Fabris

...and tell everyone what it was (he fixed it)...

Well, truthfully, I'm not entirely sure. I did learn one interesting thing, though -- on the 18GB Travelstar drive, it is possible to install the cable connector one pin to the left of its proper position. When you do this, the empeg will be completely dead--plug in the power and no LEDs light up, no screen display, no hard drive spinup -- it's like the power brick had been unplugged or something. As Tony said to me -- credit the engineers with making an idiot-proof design that doesn't fry a bunch of electronics when the connector is misaligned. The ironical thing about this is that the connector "looks" much better in the wrong position. When installed correctly, there is a gap between the left side of the cable connector and the hard drive connector, and the right side of the connector is so close to the leftmost pair of jumper pins that I don't see how you could put a jumper on those pins.

However, since there does seem to be some improvement in performance when the cable is connected properly, I'll leave it that way, even if it looks less aesthetically pleasing.

The only thing I can think of that brought the empeg back to life is, I pried the hot glue off the connectors, removed them and reseated them, and once I got the one on the hard drive aligned properly, the empeg booted right up. So even though the connectors were not loose, and in fact were glued in place, there was still a bad connection.

Be that as it may, I can tell you, these empeg things are tougher than one might think...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Ifyou have the drive out, it may well be worth checking the 20GB drives are mounted on standoffs (well, washers). These drives have a tendency to misbehave if screwed down to the cradle - not all do, but some do.

I think Tony did a faq entry on this, but basically it involves putting M3 washers between the drive and the cradle on each screw. This relieves the pressure on the drive's spindle, which on the IBM 20GB is much closer to the bottom of the drive than other drives - the 20GB is the only one we've seen this problem on.

Hugo

I just got my empeg back from my non-warranty covered accident (the parking lot drop of 4 feet.) The display was broken, as well as the handle. The fine folks at empeg replaced the handle cost free as it wasn't the new coated style, and $100 to fix the display. Shipping to and fro was more than the repair, but I'd rather see it back here quickly than trying to track it down on a container ship somewhere...

The dreaded silence is over, I have tunes again. Thanks guys! Now, where to get the Pelican case... if it's $200 or less, that little accident would have never happened...

Dave Clark
Austin, Texas
12g Blue MK2
S/N 80000329

I paid about US$45 for my case here in sweden. Most likely cheaper in the US...
That was the 1200 style, one step smaller than the one featured in the mpg video demonstrating
the empeg MkI (sorry, forgotten who it is doing the demo) which just will fit the empeg and the
remote (and a CD jewel case too, occasionally). If you want to have the cables, powersupply
etc in there too, you need to step up a size...

/Michael

I think Tony did a faq entry on this, but basically it involves putting M3 washers between the drive and the cradle on each screw.

I simply quoted your text in the drive-replacement FAQ. It's in there.

___________
Tony Fabris

it may well be worth checking the 20GB drives are mounted on standoffs

Mine is the 18GB drive. Does the same apply to it?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

No, 18's are fine mounted normally.

Hugo