Hi folks, sorry if this was answered in the FAQ or on the board, but I couldn't find it.

I just received a new player I am purchasing on escrow. The unit won't get past the RIO boot screen and the hard drive sounds like it's crashed; giving a quiet, constant, rhythmic click until I yank the plug. So, I am guessing that someone at UPS dropped it or something and the drive is crashed.

Are there any suggestions as to what I can do? Sure, the seller can take it back and give me a different one, but I have to work the escrow deal so it works. But if I end up stuck with the player, what can I do? Can I take the drive out and do a standard RMA with the manufacturer? Should I send the drive to support (which would cause some shipping charges I don't want to pay)? Or should the whole unit go to support?

I'm still new to empeg so I really don't want to remove the cover and start doing drive work. And the unit I'm reviewing is still on escrow, so I kinda' don't own it enough yet to start tearing it apart. I'm kind of F'ed because the review period is only 3 days. I'd REALLY hate to cancel the transaction and loose my exhorbitant $40 in escrow fees. Man, what a bind. Thoughts? Please? Thanks all.

Does it say no hard disk found ? Is it still under warranty ?

The clicking could also mean any of the usual cable/header problems listed in the FAQ. Doesn't necessarily mean the drive is bad or the player is bad.

My personal opinion? Even if the drive is bad, if the rest of the player works, you got a bargain. Check it by plugging a known-good drive into it with a known-good cable and seeing if it works.

If it's a new player, it won't have 2.0 on it so it won't have the drive message, I suspect. If you've got the ability to swap the entire player out with a good one, that's probably the best method. The hard drives are definitly the most likely thing to go bad, so you're on the right track. If you want to get it repaired under waranty, act fast, as support (aka "David") is taking some time off for christmas.

Matthew

Was that a 2.0 only thing I don't remember what I had on mine when the HDD died.

It is possible that you just have a faulty cable or a dry joint on the IDE header (or that it was pulled off the board during shipping), but a clunking drive usually means that it's dead.

I have a huge stock of 10GB drives, so if you're after a cheap replacement, email me for a price.

If you need to send it in for service, it'll need to wait until after the new year.

David: Thank you for the reply. It is a 30gig unit, so I would be interested in replacing it with a same-sized drive. Would the manufacturer of the drive offer me the ability to swap? Every other 3.5" IDE drive has that option.

Tony: Since I'm reviewing the unit on escrow, I can't open the top. Maybe I can work something out with the seller. But yes, I believe the player is just fine. Too bad I paid (current) full price for it and the drive is crashed.

matthew_k: Yeah, judging by the static boot logo, it's only got 1.03 on it. I could try to put 2.0b13 on there, but the drive sounds like death. I'm going to see if the seller has any more 30gig units to swap me. This is a fire-sale unit and he mentioned that he has sold more. I am trying to tell him that if he takes this unit back, he can fix the problem without too much trouble. I just don't think it should be on me to pay $700 for a new 30gig with a bad hard drive (considering I paid $700 for my first 30gig and it's 100% perfect).

Thanks for the tips everyone, I'll see what I can do.

Hm, could I possibly swap 30gig drives with my known-good 30gig empeg? That would help me isolate the problem to the new unit's hard drive. Also, I could test the new player by playing my songs, uploading and downloading tunes, and stuff like that. Will that work? (of course, i have to get consent from the seller). Thanks.

If the seller permits opening the case you could try to see if drive OEM will issue an RMA. Usually you can do this on-line and it wouldn't require you to disturb the drive from the cradle as most drive serial #'s are on the label. Repeated clicking within 3 years of mfg usually will get an RMA replacement, at least that's how its gone on any of the 6 desktop HD's I've ever RMA'd (plus 1 PCMCIA drive). If you have a laptop you could put it in that to see if it spins up properly (won't of course boot, but you can listen to see if the clicks go away).

-Zeke

Greetings!

Does the new player boot at all? Perhaps you should load 2.0b13 and see if you get a disk not found error. Also, is the drive recognized in the boot log? Lastly, you can try putting the disk builder on the new unit, see how it does with the partition pump and stress tests.

Again, if it is a loose connector, etc., you will need to open the unit to verify. Have you spoken to the seller about it? What did they say?

Depends on the drive manufacturer on whether they'll let you return a driver under warranty. IBM will refuse to accept the drive if it's an OEM drive.

- Trevor

Repeated clicking within 3 years of mfg usually will get an RMA replacement, at least that's how its gone on any of the 6 desktop HD's I've ever RMA'd

Yes, but the drives in the empeg are OEM drives, sold specifically to a company for inclusion in another product, and that usually means that they won't deal with end users for warranty work. In fact, I believe that I've seen someone say the same thing on this board before about the drives in the empeg.

But I could be wrong. It might be worth it to check and see, if all other easier avenues fail.

Tricky buggers. That's too bad. I had no idea that they not only had date of manufacture but also date of sale & customer class info on record. That's pretty a impressive piece of database (albeit annoying in this case).

-Zeke

A constant rhythmic click from the HD is one of the symptoms that I've seen with a bad cable. Given that the empeg has just been travelling, and that it's supposed to be new, I'd bet on that over a bad drive.

And if that were the case, and you returned it for another one (paying for the additional shipping), there's no certainty that the next one wouldn't have the same issue. The BBS is full of instances where shipping caused the IDE cable to move enough to cause this.

But what you really want to know is that this *is* the case and that the HD itself isn't bad..have you tried connecting a serial cable and watching the boot log?

Isn't it possible to check the IDE cable connection to the hard drive without removing anything more than the cover?

Only the half of the cable that connects to the hard drive. The other is on the main board, below the drive shock tray.

It's possible to get to the drive's connection... but to get to the motherboard end would require the breaking of the warranty seals, which could cause issues with the vendor. Although I'd recommend talking to the vendor before getting into the unit at all.

FireFox - you already have another empeg right? So in theory you could do a cable transplant for testing purposes?

I wonder if it's worth sending the vendor an email, telling him about the issue, and pointing him here. I really feel that the disk is probably fine, and the empeg just needs a little TLC to help it over it's jetlag. But the only way to be sure is to open it up and to break the warranty seals, which you don't want to do without the vendor's permission.

Another quick thought - when did you try this? Was it in a fit of excitement immediately after the unit arrived on your doorstep after spending 48hours in unheated trucks and warehouses? Have you tried again since the empeg has had a chance to warm up to room temperature?

You can't switch the drives without taking out the drive tray, don't forget about the hot glue holding the cable on the drive.

What i would do is take the top off, and see if the seals are already broken. I wouldn't remove the drive tray before i heard from the seller.

Thanks for ALL the help, everyone. Here is the situation:

The facts: I have the unit on escrow and I have to either accept it or reject it by Sunday at noon. I have contacted the seller and, though he didn't mention if he ever powered up the unit or not, he stated that any troubles with the unit were not his responsibility and should be taken up with UPS or Sonic Blue. The unit was insured with UPS when I purchased it. The seller mentioned that I may not "open the top as it would void the warranty." But, if voiding the warranty is only done by removing the drive tray, I may be able to oblige the warranty restriction and still check out the situation. Lastly, the seller does not have any more empegs for which to exchange this one.

Thoughts: (by citing your nic, i'm just quoting. the responses are for everyone to read and reply to)
genixia: A clicking drive is a cable problem? Wow, I wish all my dead IDE hard drives had that problem. I will research the FAQ and BBS for more information. Thanks for the suggestion.

pgrzelak: I would love to upgrade to 2b13 and check the boot logs (once I learn how to do that). But can I do that with no hard drive? And if the drive is giving off a seemingly nasty rhythmic click, would it be safe to let it run in that condition for the few minutes it would take to flash the drive and the few minutes it would take to read the logs? From my experience with hard drives, that's a nasty sound and I don't want to hurt the drive.

Ezekiell: I would love to RMA the drive. That's the BEST case scenario (see below). But as tman and wfaulk says, the manufacturer may not take OEM drives. So.... Good thought though.

oliver: Yeah, looks like I can't check both ends of the drive without breaking the seal. And even so, the seller doesn't want me to open the top, so I won't unless I accept the unit.

My plan:
There are a LOT of factors here. Let's start with Escrow, which has made it SO much more complicated and, honestly, not helped one bit. I can accept it or refuse it. I quite possibly can't exercise my escrow right to refuse the unit because it is not in the same condition as when the seller sent it. Of course, it could be the case that it was damaged when HE received it and he never powered it up to test. In which case, if I sent it back, it WOULD be in the condition in which he sent it. But, that's out because it can't be proven.

So, that cuts off the 'escrow refusal' part of my decision tree. Well, unless I want to be a pain and start to play hardball with the situation. So, that leaves me with accepting the unit, which means my $40 escrow fee was a waste.

If I accept it, I have to fix it. The next middle man is UPS. Since the unit was insured for $650 (which I paid, I got a deal!!), I could attempt to exercise that right. I either could or could not get money back. So, let's keep those branches of the tree open.

Ok, then, there's the unit itself. I can try to sent it to UK to get fixed without voiding the warranty (or contact Dave and see if he'll let me check the cable and let the warranty slide). That's expensive, so I'll need the money from the UPS insurance to make it worth while. And, as David said, he's got 10gig drives, but does he have 30's? More work is needed for that decision.

Or, I could keep the unit here and try to fix it myself. This involves checking the cable, trying to RMA the drive, or, if those all fail, buying a new drive for it.

So, the goal is to spend NO extra money. I paid my price for the unit so it should work. For this plan to work, I need to get $$ from UPS so I can send it to David or buy a new drive. If I don't get $$ from UPS, I need to get David's permission to break the seal and check it or, if he says that will void the warranty, I need to just void it and check the cable. Hey, could be the cable, but if it's the drive, then I have to prey the manufacturer will take it back (which it probably won't).

So, best case: I get $650 back from UPS insurance, keep the unit, open the top, remove the drive without breaking the warranty seal (wait, is that possible?), and RMA it to the manufacturer. Free empeg!

Worst case: I am forced to accept the unit, UPS can't give me insurance money because I can't prove the damage, David tells me that he won't fix it if I check the cable, I check the cable anyway and find that it's ok and that the drive is broken, and I can't RMA the drive... and David reads this and gets mad because I'm putting hypothetical words in his mouth (David, I'm kidding. Haha, just trying to look at the worst case)... and someone from UPS is on this board, reads this, and denys my insurance claim... and the unit was damaged further than just the drive (ie: broken solder joints and surface mount parts, etc) which will cause me to have to beg borrow and steal to get this thing fixed.

So, that's the evidence. What do you all think? I'm going to gather more information: I'll find out what can UPS do for me, what do the FAQ and BBS say about checking the cable, how can I use b13 to check the drive, what are the terms of the empeg warranty, etc. Thanks for ALL your suggestions. Haha, this is getting interesting! Sunday at noon is coming up FAST!

if it is under warranty does empeg pay the shipping ?

I was under the impression that they didn't. I'll ask. Thanks, I forgot that question.

I believe that they pay for shipping when it is warranty work. At least that is what it says in my e-mail, I'll be shipping mine off after the holidays.

i had to claim insurance w/ UPS recently. they lost a package i sent. anyways, ONLY THE SENDER can do the claim.... ups then send the sender the check, and then the sender refunds you back.

its refunded the full value if lost. i'm not sure what percentage you'll get back if its damaged. probably cost for repair... unless the sender claims its unrepairable.. and then that means you'd get back all.

but point of story is... if you decide to go the ups insurance route... you're at the mercy of the sender. it took me a month to finally get the insurance back to the buyer. 2 weeks for it to become officially lost, 1 week to trace, and 1 week to get the check. at least my buyer was patient.

Yes.

I do have 30GB drives in stock. If you email me, I can arrange to get the player in for service in the new year.

If the drive is clicking, then it is probably dead. If the seller didn't power it up, then since it is under warranty, I'd be inclined to replace the drive. The drive itself is not likely to have failed during shipping.

I'd advise all customers purchasing second-hand players to insist that the seller powers up the player to confirm they are in working order. If possible, ask for them to send you a photo showing the unit with the about box (showing the serial number) on the screen. That way you know the player has booted up fine and that you are seeing the same player that will be sold to you.

David: Thank you for the information. I am hoping to remove myself from this situation thanks to the escrow service. If I manage, I'll pass your support information to the seller so that he may have it repaired.

Oh, and it is a general practice of mine to ask for a picture of the serial running on the player. Alas, I got impatient in working this deal and skipped that step. (i was solidly under the impression that the player was in a shrinkwrapped box that could not be opened. once we effectively communicated that the box could be opened, i had expended so much energy that i just said "F it, send the unit" because i didn't want to piss the seller off by continually pestering him).

iMaGe: Thanks for the tip. I just found that out a few hours earlier by calling UPS. Since this was a personal transaction, he has no contractual obligation to fulfill the order once I return it. So, maybe the escrow service will help after all.

I'll let ya'll know how it goes. I get the feeling that my inclination toward escrow is really a waste because of all the subjectivity involved

<sigh> so I'm going to accept the player with the crashes HDD. Looks like escrow was 100% worthless. Any seller could ship you a broken item and when you get it and want to reject it, they could refuse to take it back. Simply claim that it was broken in the mail and that it's not "in the original condition as when they shipped it."

I have no idea when the hard drive on my new player got broken, but if it WAS during shipping, then there's no way I can go through with the UPS insurance claim. UPS wants to inspect the contents of the box at their place. There's no way I'm letting anyone open this box but me, the seller, and the Cambridge team.

Then the insurance claim is between UPS and the 3rd party place that shipped it. Yeah, looks fine, but the fragile read head is probably floating around inside the drive. Who can tell!

So, rather than have the unit go out of my control and into the hands of who knows who, I'll be sending it back to its home. Maybe I got suckered by buying a dead unit, maybe UPS botched it (I still blame UPS because I trust the seller). I don't know but I DID get a good price and the warranty service is free. I guess I made out ok in the end. Thanks for all your help everyone.

As I said...

Even if the hard drive is completely dead, if the rest of the player is working, you still got a bargain. Hard drives are cheap and plentiful, and David even said he'd help you out.

I wouldn't say the escrow was worthless couldn't they have just took your money and not send anything without it.