Hi everyone,

I've been getting the Hard Disk Not Found, and I think I need the IDE header repair.

I live in Minneapolis, MN, USA. Who is willing to let me hire you to fix this for me? Is Eutronix my best bet? I believe that mlord has also repaired quite a few. Is that Canada only, Mark? Obviously, turnaround time is relatively important to me, but not at the expense of experience and quality work, of course.

I appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks,

Jim

Why do you think it's the IDE header problem? This only occurs relatively infrequently, and primarily on RIOCar players. The ONLY way that this can be diagnosed is by visual inspection with a magnifier. It cannot be done any other way. Have you dismantled the player and removed the drive sled to do this?

Don't assume that the IDE header is defective, unless you have one or more of the following risk factors:

- you have a RIOCar player (a Mk2a, for all intents and purposes)
- you have a two-disk installation
- you have opened the unit since purchase to modify the unit, and have removed the IDE cable

When I was doing support officially, the first step was a serial log, the second was send a replacement cable. If it still failed, it was brought in for inspection and repair (usually a CS4231A failure from cable plugging).

If you are worried about cost and turnaround for a repair, then a cable is the best first option. Both Stuart and I have these. Mine are original RIO replacements, Stuart's is a longer version of the cable.

I am currently working on having these originals modified, which should be available soon. This mod adds an extra connector 5mm upstream of the first connector, giving the correct distance between the board connector and the first hard disk. This allows the disk sled to move correctly inside the unit without stressing the IDE header on the main board.

I will be putting together another post on another mod to the drive sled to allow the sled to move more freely, to be done in conjunction with the use of a new cable.

Rob, I've been thinking about this concept, given that we're seeing a lot of people recently complaining of "No Hard Disk Found" errors and related issues. And it does seem people want to jump straight to the header as the cause.

Perhaps it is time to rework, in a subtle way, the relevant FAQ entry in order to make clear that this is not a common problem (the header) and to give people a very VERY clear concept of what steps to take and, more importantly, in what order. This might save time (and expense and effort) for all involved. Granted, it seems to be in the correct order already, but seems as if it's a matter of "oh, and try this too", rather than "First, do this. If that fails, do this... etc. I think the FAQ entry should also include your comments regarding the criteria for suspecting the header problem.

I say this only because it seems as if the dynamics of support seem to be slightly different that when the FAQ entry was initially composed. Where the FAQ suggests contacting support to be walked through the problem, most of the non-physical support now seems to be taking place here in the open forums, even if it is still you (Rob) doing it.

Tony? Thoughts?

On the other hand, it's nice to see that people seem to be reading the FAQ!

Hi,

Now that RobS and Stu are up to speed on general repairs, I am only doing fixes for units within Canada. Our border dudes just make it too expensive to ship stuff into this country nowadays.

Cheers.

Rob,

Thanks for the great reply. I have all three of those risk factors, including removal of the ide cable several times for different drive upgrades. I also had gibberish for drive ID in the serial log intermittently. I haven't tried the serial log recently. The last time I had it apart, I looked at the solder joints, but without a magnifier, and didn't notice anything obvious. I'll post a serial log if you think that's appropriate.

Thanks again,

Jim

And remember, Rob would be the one getting your money if you insist on paying for uneeded repairs! So take his post seriously, he's just trying to save you trouble.

The first try to fix the "No Harddisk Found" problem should always be to reseat the cable. The cable has to be absolutely flush to the drive. I always tell people to rub their thumb side to side over the connectors (after first making sure the cable is not plugged in "one pin off"). First, make sure the connector on the motherboard is nice and tight, then make sure the drive(s) connections are 100%. Once, when even this didn't cure my problems entirely, I took a member's advice and used some dielectric grease (the same you use for lightbulbs in cars) and that worked. I was skeptical, but it worked.

That being said, I had one player that kept acting up and I sent it off to Mark Lord to have him check it out. His visual inspection didn't show any loose pins on the IDE header, but he warmed them up a little bit just to be sure. I think he said that it looked like the IDE header had already been repaired. We were both doubtful that this wouuld do anything for me, but when I got the player back, it booted right up and has worked without a glitch since. If dealing with US/Canadian customs wasn't such a pain in the ass, I'd recommend that route for anyone else. I live 15 minutes from the Canadian border but that didn't help! Took several months to get an incorrect custom's bill resolved (Thanks Mark for being patient about this and refunding the fee once they cleared it up).

Minor reworks to the wording in a couple of places has been done.

Hey, sometimes it really is the ide header. If you know how to use a continuity checker, put one probe on the solder (NOT the ide metal pin part) and the other on the topmost tip of the metal pin of the ide header, Try to jiggle this pin with the probe. if there is no/or intermittent continuity you definitely need a solder job. Repeat for each pin. Differences in temperatures and putting on/pulling off the ide cable can cause the problem.

Send it to Eutronix for repair. They definitely know what to do.

Huh.

It was a dying AC power supply. Couldn't keep the drives spun up, just as described in the FAQ. Changed to a different PSU and it started right up. This still doesn't explain the intermittent Disk Not Found errors, which have also been happening on DC. It also doesn't explain the occasionally gibberish in the serial log. BUT, I've got a player to use now until the thing fails for good.

I want the light kit and I want to have the capacitor installed for the screen brightness, so maybe I'll send it to Eutronix and have them inspect the IDE header while they install the other stuff.

Thanks again, everyone.

Jim

Quote:
explain the occasionally gibberish

This could be due to Hyperterminal, especially if you're running Windows XP. If you search the BBS, you'll find some recommendations for other free software that does what hyperterminal does, but with out the glitches.

Jim specifically mentioned that the "drive serial number" (Identifier String?) was corrupted. If the rest of the log was OK (no corruption of the log text) then it's likely that one or more data bits on the databus to the IDE drive is being corrupted. Sources of this could either be a databus buffer going bad, a bad cable, or a dodgy solder joint on the header (yes, I know!). Again, start off with the cheapest option - a correctly dimensioned IDE cable, properly installed.

Oh, other way to corrupt an IDE data line is some other chip on the bus acting up. We had a very tricky case here of an ethernet chip with a stuck data line that was producing IDE data errors on one fellow's player.

Cheers

...or the USB chip, or the CS4231A, or the databus buffer itself...

Yes, it was definitely just the drive ID information that was garbled. I've tried the new cable with the longer Eutronix cable. I am still intermittently getting the No Hard Drive error. Last time, all I did was cycle the power and it came up. That makes me suspicious of mechanical (solder joint) type problems, but I don't have any experience debugging these things.

What's my best option, wait for it to fail in a more permanent way or send it away to be fault tested by an expert? Thoughts?

Thanks everyone,

Jim

Well, I would try regularly getting a boot log and look for the CS4231A device. If it is intermittently being reported as not found, then it could be the chip is on the way out. However, it normally tends just to go "phut" and lose all it's blue smoke.

If you are always getting a good 4231A and occasionally getting rubbish disk ID strings, then you may have bad IDE header joints. Either write down EXACTLY how the string appears, including funny characters, accent characters, etc. or snag the boot log with this on show. If you post that here, then using an ASCII table we can tell which data line on the header has got the bad joint. I can then tell you exactly which pin to solder to reduce the risk of damage.

However, I would STILL recommend that you do NOT DIY, and you pass it to one of the repairers such as Stuart at Eutronix, or myself. That way, you stand a better chance of having it survive ...

Oh, I won't repair it myself. Definitely.

I'll try to get a serial log of the failure. Intermittent failures are the worst...

J

ROFL