Karma click of death

Was happily listening to my Karma when it suddenly stopped playing mid-song. It had locked up hitting the powerdown button just bought up the hourglass and it started clicking.

It does

clickclickclickclickclickclickbeep
clickclickclickclickclickclickbeep
clickclickclickclickclickclickbeep
etc

Had to resort to a paperclip reset, and now when I turn it on the display freezes at the Rio splash screen and it continues to click.

Is it knackered? I really hope it isn't - if it is, it doesn't say much for Rio reliability.

If I start it in recovery mode I get a picture of a sad Karma with the following:

rom v0.26
hwrev0000000004
hdd:

It's knackered. You'll have to get it replaced.

If you can't get the HD model number to appear when you start recovery mode then it's definitely dead.

ARSE

I'm in the UK. I bought it in the US from Amazon.com

Any advice?

I bought mine from Amazon UK and I've already had it replaced once. Just the other day it didn't like a track and would reboot once it powered up and started trying to play. The only way I could fix it was to plug it in and reformat it with recovery mode. Gotta load it back up now

If you check out riovolution, I know there's a store that's actually selling the drive. I don't know if anyone's actually tried replacing the drive themselves yet, however. I think they're slightly over $100.

Matthew

It's not 90 days old yet though. Would rather get it fixed or replaced by Rio if I can

Just the other day it didn't like a track and would reboot once it powered up

Feel free to provide a copy of the dodgy track so we can catch that particular edge case in future.

Thanks

Rob

Rob - any advice for me???

Certainly sounds like the disk has died. Sounds like a head on platter, which can often be fixed by giving the unit a sharp tap while its trying to start up - but I would recommend getting it replaced under warranty.

You'll probably have to call the US support centre since you bought it there, but you could give the UK centre a try, or even Amazon UK. The Rio support numbers are on the web site.

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/support/rio/contacts.asp?locSup=USA

Rob

Thanks - I'll give it a go.

Hmm. The UK support number seems to redirect to Germany and the chap I spoke to didn't have very good English (although it was better than my German)

He recommended that I hold in in one hand and hit it several times with the other, and to try it both with the Karma turned on and with it turned off.

Sounds a bit Heath Robinson to me - does it actually work, and if so does it do any damage? If it fixes the problem, will it just fix it long enough for my 90 days to be up and then totally fail?

Update: I gave it a gentle thwack as recommended by Rio Technical Support and it seems to have dislodged the stuck hard drive head, or whatever the problem was.

But now it's in a continuous loop - startup, loading visuals, etc, displays the track name as per normal for a few seconds, then it reboots.

Any ideas?

Thats what mine did. I had to use the firmware upgrader to reformat the disk. I don't know if it's totally working but I've loaded a few tracks on and it seems to play them properly. Unfortunately I didn't write down what track it was barfing on.

For future reference, mine is failing on the following track:

Fun Lovin' Criminals
We Have All The Time In The World

You'd need to test again after you've reformatted the Karma to see if it is definitely that track that is making it reboot or if it's just the HD being screwed.

If it is that track then send it on to the empeg guys.

A reformat seems to have revived it

Just trying that track now...

And it's fine. Played it through a few times, tried forwarding and rewinding through it, turning on and off midway through it.

Can't break it again