Possible Hard Drive Issues...

[tardinha]

Hey people...

Just thought I'd run this by you and see if anyone else has experienced this.

I have a H140 (iHP-140 from the olden days), and have been using it pretty regularly since I bought it back in August 2004, and it hasn't missed a beat. I've been using Rockbox on it for quite a while too, and love it.

About a month ago, I plug it into the USB on my PC and nothing happens. The red disk light is flashing for ages, but no connection is made. Eventually a drive comes up in My Computer, but says it's unformatted. I check the event log, and it's reporting bad sectors.

The odd part is, it still plays fine. All music is accessable. The only problem is not being able to connect to it from my PC to add new music. I'm not sure if I'm linking two events here, but, the only different thing I have done recently, while bored on the train one day, was use Rockbox's delete feature to get rid of a few unwanted folders and files. Could this have caused bad sectors?

When I bought it, I got a 5 years extended warrenty. Do you think it's time to take advantage of their new for old policy (new, being whatever the latest equal value player stocked is), or should I try formatting it and starting again. One problem I see with that, is if it fails to fix it, i will be without music for my daily 4 hours of commuting.

Plus, if I do take advantage of the extended warrenty, what new players out there should I go for? iRiver don't make anything with nearly enough capacity anymore, plus, I love Rockbox, so that pretty much leaves me with an iPod. Any thoughts on that?

Well, that's about it.

Thanks

Mark

[jumbuck]

You could try using the error checking/disc check ( My computer -> right click your player ->properties -> tools -> error checking ).

[tardinha]

that was my first port of call... it just sits there for 30 secs, and says complete, without going through all the usual phases.

Originally Posted by jumbuck

You could try using the error checking/disc check ( My computer -> right click your player ->properties -> tools -> error checking ).

[tardinha]

well...

i took the plunge. i used the format option in the iRiver firmware, and voila, it's visible in windows

so, now i'm doing a full format from within windows, just to make double sure.... and then it's on to copying all my music back on

i feel good that i don't have to give my beloved H140. after all the reading i've done over the past few days, there seems to be few players that can touch it not only feature wise, but also in sound quality. i think i'd die without my folder based navigation!!

Thanks

Mark

[jumbuck]

Thats good news .
Thank you for sharing you solution with us.