Haven't really gotten into the FAQ too deeply, have seen info on popping and crackling on playback, but that's not my problem. After playing for a few minutes, the song will become garbled, and at loud volumes, it scares the hell out of me.

The other day, it did it (the first time since I've had it). The empeg stopped responding, but would start playing again. I gained enough control to power it off. After a restart, I got the no hard disk found. It was hot out, but I had just brought the player to the truck from inside, so I don't think it was a temperature issue. Took the player inside, and it immediately booted up. Took it back outside, and it was fine.

Drove to work this morning, no problems. Driving home, first 15 minutes, no problems, then I skipped a track, and the player behaved like it was paused. I pushed play again, nothing. I skipped the track, went to the next song and it played fine. Almost home and the high pitched garble started again. I was at a long stoplight, so I turned the truck off, the player seemed to be paused and didn't power down. I pulled the player, and re-docked it. Came on, played for a minute, started to screw up, so I just powered it off.

I'll probably check the docking connectors before opening the player. But, I'm guessing it is the hard drive going bad (misread sectors or unreadable sectors). If anyone has had the same experience, please share. I guess this is as good of an excuse as any to upgrade the drive(s).

I'm running Emplode, and the consumer release 2.00, beta 7, so go easy on the requests for output data. That's one thing that I haven't got into yet. Maybe an update of the Empeg software would help.

I'm headed to the gym, so I might not be able to reply until tomorrow, but I figured I'd give you guys some brainstorming time. Thanks in advance.

Forgot to add that I got an "Invalid File Type" error on an mp3 that had already played countless times.

Haven't really gotten into the FAQ too deeply

Well then, let me suggest starting here, and moving on to here.

Yeah, I read both of those. I got the no hard disk found once. It was a hot day out, so it could be expansion in the connectors. Any idea on the invalid file format on an mp3 that was fine before? Or the fact that one song will just sit at 0:00, but the next will play correctly?

I wasn't getting the clicking and popping, it's a completely different sound. To make a bad analogy, if you've heard Blessed Union Of Souls "She Likes Me For Me" (radio overplay), it sounds somewhat like the digital sound effect following "my collection of DVD's"... Sorry, but that's the best that I can do.

When running in transient mode, the player will come close to locking up, the visual will run one frame every 2 or 3 seconds, or even just stop altogether. Drove to work this morning, and everything was fine. Maybe it is heat related (or visual related, now that I think about it).

Any idea on the invalid file format on an mp3 that was fine before?

Yeah, hard disk trouble.

Or the fact that one song will just sit at 0:00, but the next will play correctly?

Yeah, hard disk trouble.

I wasn't getting the clicking and popping, it's a completely different sound.

Yeah, screeching static can be caused by hard disk trouble.

When running in transient mode, the player will come close to locking up, the visual will run one frame every 2 or 3 seconds, or even just stop altogether.

Yeah, I've seen hard disk trouble cause this.

Trying to emphasize a point???

Gotcha. Just didn't see these specific problems described anywhere. Was wondering if anyone had experienced the exact same stuff and had a fix.

Occasionally I've had the screeching and invalid file format, but they were both caused by me being a numpty when messing around with applications and the filesystem. Things got corrupt - restoring from backup sorted them.

The fact that you are having all those problems would seem to indicate (as Tony pointed out ) hard disk issues.

Your problem sounds a LOT like the problem I was having. I lived with it for about a year, thinking it was a power issue with my car's alternator.

Only when attempting to upgrade the drive did I relaize the problem was with the first connector on the drive cable. So, instead of running two drives in there, I just ended up running the new bigger drive on the previously unused connector on the cable.

I sent an email to support asking about purchasing a replacement cable and haven't received a reply, but I'm not in any big rush since I know have a perfectly working Empeg again, and with more storage than I had before.

SO, switch the connectors and see if that fixes your issues. Very simple and quick to do, so it will be worth it. You just won't be able to easily copy songs from on old drive to a knew one while you're in there.

Scott