Anyone happen to have a spare IDE cable that I can buy? "Failed to unmask IDE" has now taken over my development Empeg ....

(side note: It figures that it dies now ... I literally got jEmplode to compile again about 5 minutes ago and right when I try to synchronize for the first time, it starts clicking. Incidentally, I thought jEmplode sync was totally broken till i realized it was doing a background sync -- kind of cool ).

I haven't ever actually opened my Empeg up (OK -- small lie -- I changed the colored lense), so I have no idea how much of a pain it is to test/fix/etc this problem. I assume if I'm just replacing the cable, it's pretty easy. The FAQ makes the "fix it yourself" route sound like a bad idea, so I'm guessing I should avoid that ... I should have stocked up on spare parts a while ago -- I should have known the inevitable was approaching.

ms

The FAQ makes the "fix it yourself" route sound like a bad idea

I didn't realize I did it that way. I intended it to be more like "it's a bad idea if you're a klutz but otherwise go for it".

Anyway, if you've never opened the player, you can't be sure it's a cable problem. It could be the IDE header, or any one of a number of other problems. You really should open it up and check it out.

I'm of the opinion that most of the "cable failures" are really "header failures", as Tony suggested. Just run a soldering iron along each of the 44 pads of the IDE header on the mainboard (with IDE unplugged, so as not to melt something important..).

Cheers

Agreed. Of the 10 or so empegs i've opened up (all to check the cable) all but 2 of them had floating header pins... by that i mean they were just sitting on top of the solder on the pad instead of being incased by the solder.