H120 just had a stroke

[lemonéad]

Hi all

This is my first post on mysticriver, although I've used it many times before just for info.

I have a H120 since Jan '05, I love it. I wouldn't give it up for anything less than a brand new iRiver HDD player, thing is, I don't want to and can't afford to give it up...

I've had a problem on my player for a while where songs have literally had chunks bitten out of them. Albums were all there and songs all played to a certain extent but then either skipped a chunk or skipped before the end. (think it had something to do with copying files over from a computer at work)

I ran chkdsk on the system and it repaired a lot of the files but then I just ended up with a load of songs with milliseconds missing here and there and that was just as annoying.

So over the Christmas break I decided I would erase everything of the player and put some brand new ogg files I got as a gift from a friend (all in numerical order thanks to a fabulous program aquired of the net!)

So rather than just delete everything I decided to move it all over to my PC last night so I might be able to recover anything at a later date.

The move did not work, I don't know why. The folders moved over but they were all empty and now my iRiver is empty too. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing if I could access the player through the computer.......

- Have installed the HManager 1.70 that came with the player originally.

- Have formatted the drive through the general menu (Have firmware 1.66E installed on it) The first time I tried to format it, it said cannot format. The second time, it worked but there was a message at the bottom of the screen to say "check HDD connection" and then it just displayed "check HDD".

- I have downloaded swissknife but to no avail either.

- Device manager shows it in the menu but does not recognise a driver for it and won't let me update the driver.

I don't know what else to do......I'm not particularly hardware savvy but I am a pretty good learner so all advice would be more than welcome.

I really don't want to start the new year with no iRIver!
Please help!

[lemonéad]

So, an edit.

The problem seems to be that the drive has lost it's ID...there is no drive letter assigned to it.

I have tried to assign a letter in computer management but it doesn't show up there to assign it...?

For me, as far as I can remember, the iRiver always took the letter I but I noticed that one of the cardreaders on this PC had the letter I assigned to it. So re-assigned another letter to it but still no good.

Tried to reboot the PC with the player connected and it just simply would not fully start up. As soon as I unplugged the player the desktop came up, previous to that the screen was black.

I re-connected the player before I went into the user account and as soon as I got in there I got a dialogue box to ask me to disconnect the iRiver.

So the computer knows it is there. The iRiver knows it's connected.
How do I get them to interface??????

[Dunno]

try formatting the player with the format feature in the players iriver firmware.

[lemonéad]

thanks Dunno, but that was one of the things listed in the first message of what I'd already done. Tried it again last night but to no addition. The format worked alright but it didn't make any difference to the recognition.

The problem is getting a letter assigned to the drive...

I've tried it on a couple of computers too at this stage.

[Dunno]

I googled "pc wont assign drive letter" and got several hits, perhaps one of them can sort you out.

[caramelsoul]

I think its more of a case of your HD being goosed. You may need to aquire a new hard drive.

[bugg100]

Sounds to me like a bad drive. Problems were there before the copy/wipe. Just not as severe, but getting worse. Find a new drive via ebay. Then if youstill have other problems, adress them at that time only.

As it stands, dou know if your current problem is computer or player related? You tried several computers with same outcome..... But you KNOW you have had some problems with the drive losing info for a while now. Start with the known problem first....

Good luck,
Joe

[bugg100]

Sounds to me like a bad drive. Problems were there before the copy/wipe. Just not as severe, but getting worse. Find a new drive via ebay. Then if youstill have other problems, adress them at that time only.

As it stands, dou know if your current problem is computer or player related? You tried several computers with same outcome..... But you KNOW you have had some problems with the drive losing info for a while now. Start with the known problem first....

Good luck,
Joe

[HorstIriver]

Originally Posted by lemonéad

thanks Dunno, but that was one of the things listed in the first message of what I'd already done. Tried it again last night but to no addition. The format worked alright but it didn't make any difference to the recognition.

The problem is getting a letter assigned to the drive...

I've tried it on a couple of computers too at this stage.

Lemonéad, To simplify the manufacturing process, today manufacturers use this strategy: Drives of different sizes use identical controllers, and the physical parameters of the disk pack are stored on one of the platters on a write protected area. At power-on, the firmware reads this piece of info because it needs to know what type and size of platters the drive contains. After that, the drive is ready. But if this spot on the platter where those parameters are stored gets defective, the drive will hang forever and won't get a letter assigned. Your problems with incomplete/interrupted songs showed that something bad was going on in your drive. Magnetic particles or dust, for example. I think you will need a new drive.
Horst

[lemonéad]

Thanks to everyone for your help, it's been a learning process at the very least!
And maybe I can take this opportunity to upgrade to newer model or larger drive.
We've had three great years together, what more can I do!

Thanks again for your help.
lemonéad

[Treehugger]

Hey, if you are unable to repair your irver, consider selling the spare parts for money, cause some of us are desperate for spare parts, like the screen (cough cough). But seriously, post what new mp3 player you get, cause we are all looking for an H120 replacement