I tore apart my Empeg (Mark II) to try to fix some problems i have been having with it and when I put it back together, I thought I had the IDE cables properly lined up. However, when I turned it on, the hard drives didn't work and nothing came on the screen (although I could see the red light on the circuit board was on. Does anyone have any close-up pics of the IDE cables show exactly where it is position on the pins. Thanks.

Simply make sure every hole in the connector on the cable has a pin in it. At least at both ends and you can be sure it's lined up.

Possibly you have have the solder header problem aggravated by pulling it apart.
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=mod...;faqent=221#221

Edit: Also if the screen is not displaying anything, unplug the IDE cable completely and make sure you get the no hard disk found error. Otherwise the problem lies somewhere else.

Did you also unplug the display board cable ? If so that is easy to get off by one.

NB: That will likely damage the empeg (by blowing a surface mount fuse or two) if this is what you've done. Not a major repair but requires surface mount soldering:
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=mod...;faqent=217#217

Okay..i got it to show up on the screen again. However, it is still doing what it did before (it would come up with an error (ex. 0000.-1 hd:err:irq:timeout or something like that....it disappeared before i could get the whole thing.)However, most of the time, it just says 'No Hard Drive Found." I was going to check the hard drives to see if they have errors (using hyperterminal), but found out that Vista no longer has hyperterminal. Will one of the alternatives to Hyperterminal work the same way?

PuTTY should work just fine on Vista (and is much better than Hyperterminal anyway).
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

From what you're describing I would say IDE header or cable problems. May also a dying drive.

Get the boot log with PuTTY and we'll go from there.

Will I still be able to get the boot log when it comes up with the "No Hard Drive Found" error? Also, I downloaded Putty, but when I set the settings and click open, it doesn't let me do anything.
'

Or is it possible to check the hard drives by hooking it up to my home computer's IDE cable and test it?

Boot log will work just fine with or without harddrives.

So you have a straight through serial cable connected to a COM port on the PC and to the back of the empeg unit itself. Open the port at 8N1 115200 baud (no flow control) and just power on the empeg. You don't need to send any command or anything to the empeg.

Read here also:
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=mod...mp;faqent=82#82

Define "doesn't let me do anything". The port won't open?

Connecting to your PC (running Linux preferably) will allow you to check the drive functions but little else. Personally I doubt the drive is at fault. I would guess bad cabling and/or header still.

Get the boot log. It should take just a few minutes and won't involve pulling anything apart any further.

Ok...i got it to work. Here is the log:

ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
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:a5
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...VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

That's not all of it. That's probably about a third or a quarter of it. Scroll up in the window once it's done?

The "wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaea" looks bad. This is the sort of problem you get with headers and cables.

He didn't have a hard disk connected. Oh but wait, you are correct: we need to see the top part of the log as well. Very important, that!

Connect the hard drive, red/black stripe closest to the edge of the case, and send us another boot log.


Utterly meaningless, unless there's a hard drive connected *and* we see problems with the drive itself.

Cheers

Thanks for all the help Shonky and mlord. In the process of doing all this, my IDE cable is starting to fall apart, so I am ordering a new one from Eutronix. hopefully that is what the problem was. However, is there a way to test the hard drives with a regular IDE cable on my computer in the meantime?

Lots of ways.

• 3.5" to 2.5" HDD Converter
• USB SATA/IDE Cable Set
• USB 2.0 2.5-inch HDD-Enclosure

(cheap, too: those prices include shipping)

Well...i got the cable (it was very quick too) and when I tried to connect it to the motherboard of the Empeg some of the pins got bent and eventually two of the ones on the right side broke off.Is this a difficult thing to fix?

Yes. Quite risky, too.

At this point, your best option is to send it to Stu (Eutronix) for proper repair.

Cheers

This might be a dumb question but is every single pin on that IDE connector (on the circuit board) being used for something? I assume so, but wasn't sure....

Remembering of course we are talking about 2.5" drives using a 44 pin connector. The extra 4 pins (41-44) are +5 volts (2 pins), ground (1 pin) and a "type" signal (1 pin). The other 40 pins map 1 to 1 with the 40 pin version.

http://www.hardwarebook.info/ATA_(44)_Internal

Sounds like you should be letting a pro look at it now.

are the connectors of a brand new IDE cable usually really tight at first?

also, is there a way to test the hard drive for errors and keep the data on it intact?

That's what smartctl is for.

Or even simpler, cat /dev/hd? > /dev/null
except that will be a lot slower than running a smartctl test.