I got the dreaded message today when I started my car on the way home from work. Tried several reboots and that didn't work. When I got home, I took it all apart to check the connections and everything seems to be making a good connection. Both of the hard disks are spinning up when power is applied. and the serial boot log is showing that both hard disks are found. Here is a copy of the serial output...

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([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 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg51-hijack-v300 ([email protected]) (gcc ve
rsion 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Wed Oct 16 19:33:51 EDT 2002
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40104270)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (988k code, 20k reserved, 364k data, 4k 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)
IrCOMM protocol (Dag Brattli)
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 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a38c
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005d80).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, 9590MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63
hdb: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
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:d7:28:10:a
e
Partition check:
hda:hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
ide0: reset: success
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
ide0: reset: success
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x04
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 0
unable to read partition table
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
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...attempt to access beyond end of device
03:05: rw=0, want=2, limit=0
dev 03:05 blksize=1024 blocknr=1 sector=2 size=1024 count=1
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05


What is causing this and how can I fix it?

What is causing this and how can I fix it?

One of these things is causing it, and if you follow that link, you can also get ideas on how to fix it.

Dry solder joints where the IDE connector joins to the motherboard

It seems to be the most fasionable problem of late. One of mine has this issue. I'd suggest emailing David about it. Don't expect a quick response though; repairs are closed for the holidays (And I'm without my empeg !#$!$!#$!). If you haven't done the IDE cable swap, it's worth it to try that first.