having a bit of trouble with my empegs... some i have been able to sort out by reading through the archives, some i have not. i own a couple of mk1's and a mk2. i don't do linux really, but know my way around a shell enough that i can follow instructions.

first problem, usb support. both my mk1's are fully functional, but i am only able to connect to them via serial. i wanted to use my vista laptop, but haven't been able to get it to recognize the USB. plugged in it asks for drivers, point it to where i unzipped the emplode2.0 download but it doesn't like them. the faq states "Reports are that the driver works with Vista but not with x64." this is what i expect my issue to be. the laptop doesn't have serial and the mk1's don't have ethernet. the only way to get it to work would be usb, so i think i am sol on this.

dusted off an old XP machine, installed emplode and the USB drivers. this was a fresh install, the box had never had either installed prior to this weekend. checked in device manager, shows USB as having 'SONICblue Rio Car' there. open emplode but keep getting 'unknown player on USB' in there. selecting the unknown player results with the 'The player appears to no longer be connected' warning. this machine has a serial port (unlike my laptop) and this is how i can currently connect to both the mk1's. i even uploaded a custom logo to confirm that part of the equasion is working.

worst case scenario, i update these players via serial. emplode loads music, slow as it is. i can live with this, one is for my wifes car and the second is a backup and test device. i am just puzzled as it seems USB should work.

second problem, mk2 drive. i bought it with two 18gig drives installed, and it worked great for a long time. a while back it started failing, not recognizing the drives and i just stopped using it. now that i have been dealing with the mk1's i thought i would tackle this beast. rather than bother with possible bad drives i pulled a 60gig drive from an old laptop that wasn't being used. figured i would run an update over it and that would wipe all the previous data, giving me a clean slate to toss music at. the old drives were both toshiba's and so was this one. i thought i would be able to do the upgrade without much difficulty. haha...

so i download mark lords bigdisk.v4 image from rtr.ca and run it over the drive. seemed to go well until i think i am having the 'fids' issue that was so well documented. the machine keeps giving me the 'drives already built' message. fine, i'll go in and delete fids as instructed and then reapply the image. only thing is that the last command to execute is 'rom' and my shell keeps giving me the 'command not found' message. trying the image again changes nothing. great, so now i decide i'll just connect the drive to my laptop and format it there. while i am at it i figure i will format the 18gig drives for safe measure. turns out one of them was dead for sure, so i know now that was at least contributing to my problems. i slap the 60gig back in the mk2, rinse and repeat. after reimaging i get the same 'drives already built' message. so i think, i'll try the one good 18gig drive. same thing. looking at the hyperterm bootup output i see...

Click to reveal..
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])77,
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV,
On DC power, quick bootwrote 0x0000 read 0xff0

e000 v1.04ta_test: w
Copying kernel...xff00
Calling linux kernel...
ide_data_test: wrot
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne0xaaaa read 0xaa00rote 0xffff read 0xff00
ide_data_test: wrote 0
l.55
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg55-hijack-v508 ([email protected]) (gcc versionDISK drive0xaaaa read 0xaa00
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on i
2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri Jan 9 16:06:35 EST 2009GAV, 17301MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=35152/16/63
Makin
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11

DISK driveMK1814GAV, ATA DISK drivee("Mak
Checking for extra DRAM:
c0c00000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001ata_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff00
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel 0xffff read 0xff00
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
hda: hda1 < hda5 hd
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)

hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX(ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
bas
Uncom
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039g unused kernel memory: 4k initng the kern
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
Builder image

b
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
bash-2.01# savenux............
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UARTot found
bash-2.01#
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
or forever

Signature is ffffffff 'ÿÿÿÿ'
bash-2.01# help
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
GNU
show_message("Hijack v508 by Mark Lord")own-linux-gnu)
empeg display initialised.
Calibrating delay l
empeg dsp audio initialised

ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xab80[-e ename] [-nlr] [first] [last
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5580
ttyS02 at 0xf803
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff80job_spec] for NAME
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff80
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xab80
function NAME { COMMANDS ; }
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5580
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff80D=-1ta_test: wrote 0xaaaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff80r] [-p pathname] [name ...]
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xab80N | -N] [-n] pwd [-PL]
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff80eg power-pic driver initialised (fi
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff80 [-r] [-p prompt] [-a array] [ readonly
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff80
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xab8
RAM disk
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff80
set [--abefhkmnptuvxBCHP] [-o
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xab80
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5580on 0x334
bash
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff64t found
2.95.
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff641# exitJan 9 16:06:35
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xbf64otstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x7764
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV, ATA DISK drivethere is anyone present who wants to u
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff00
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff00forever hold their peace...it seems not
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaa00
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff00
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaa00g by UNIFIXessage("Tuning hda5")
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5500
l.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV, ATA DISK driveca) (gcc version3/06/96
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff00
Based u
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xff00
Checking for extr
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaa00
c0c00000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc00
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5500
NetWinder Floating Point Emula
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV, ATA DISK drivep.8030000 (irq = 16) is a
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xff00
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5500
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: TOSHIBA MK1814GAV, 17301MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=35152/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:0c:00:1
b
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
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: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initBuilder image
show_message("Builder image")
show_message("Drives already built")

bash-2.01#


so at this point i am beat. i have RTFM and the faq, searched the boards and just don't know where i am failing. formating the drives didn't change anything and as i am getting the same results on different working drives i can only assume that the problem may lie within the player itself. if anyone has the time to puzzle this one out i would appreciate any guidance. sorry that this is so long and rambling, i was trying to be as complete as possible.

tia
_________________________
pax
clt (#155, 215, 303, 6000000000000000027)