I was one of the last ones to purchase an MKIIa and it’s about a month out of warranty. I've always treated my MKIIa with care and never handled it roughly. However, now I'm in need of ANOTHER HD. The first one went bad about 6 months ago and I sent it to David who tuned it around in a little more that a week. That was amazing to me since I live in the USA, an ocean away.

Anyway, I was in a friend’s car and had the Rio hooked into the cigarette lighter and the cassette player. The cigarette adapter came loose and powered the Empeg on and off rapidly a few times. Then dead Tux came up. Now all I hear are a few clicks when the played boots and I do NOT hear the drive spin-up.

In the old days I had a 486 PC I could bump while booting to make the HD spin up. I have a feeling the 20 Gig drive in the Empeg just needs some kind of "bump" or something to get it to spin-up.

Anyone ever have any luck taking apart a laptop HD and getting it to spin-up?

I am rather handy and can handle most mechanical and electrical tasks.

If this HD is like my last one it is an IBM Travistar 20 Gig (haven’t taken it apart yet).

The last HD did exactly the same thing when it went bad. Like I mentioned I sent it to David, replaced the cable and there are not cold solder joints. I have no doubt the HD is really bad. Maybe something is wrong with my Empeg that is burning up HD's????

THANKS!