Nomad Jukebox 3 (aka the Thwacked Fish)
So... about a month ago, I let my little brother use my Mp3 player, namely a Nomad Jukebox 3 (a very cool Mp3 player, especially notable for its advanced recording abilties in comparison with others in its class). It hasn't worked since that day.
My particular Nomad has always been slightly buggy with its battery difficulties, but I had intended to remedy that by purchasing a new (or possibly additional) battery. However, this was indeed a dire situation. The Nomad still booted up, but in "Rescue Mode" (vaguely analogous to the BIOS Setup on a PC). Options are Clean Up, Format All, Reload OS, and Reboot. Clean Up does nothing. Format All displays a dialog box that says Formatting... for quite some time, but never actually does anything. Reload OS gives a screen that says "Hard Disk Problem" (yes, I know, an immediate "uh oh"), and Reboot... well, that one works; but it doesn't help me.
So tonight, with the help of articles from nomadness, I decided to take my JB3 apart and see if I could hit the hard drive into submission. There's a lot of screws on these things. I wish I had pictures throughout the process. I took it all apart... pulled the hard drive out... it was actually pretty cool to look at in its disjointed state.
Anyway, hitting the hard drive did nothing. I was tempted to drop it on the floor, but after a few minutes of contemplation decided otherwise. However, my dad--realizing that nothing else had worked--suggested that we open the hard drive up. I don't know if you've ever taken electronics apart, but this is one of those things that would make you raise your eyebrow and think "Well, I don't suppose we couldn't... but its always seemed like a bad idea." Anyway we took it apart. It looks like a turntable... but a futuristic, 21st century, silicon-on-a-platter sort of turntable. He jolted it back into its normal rotating form (it seems the hard drive hadn't even been spinning) and gave it a 30% chance to live, but... alas... today wasn't the hard drive's day.
Even attempting to install the latest firmware updates and everything hasn't worked. After transferring the data, it just kicks itself back into Rescue Mode. I'm going to see if I can order a new 2.5" hard drive off of ebay or newegg, but shelling out $100 is going to be a pain. However, on the bright side, I can now get whatever size hard drive I want (mmm 60 GB Mp3 player), and I already have experience taking the case apart for the upgrade.
It was fun.
Oh, and the secondary part of the title refers to a story my father related, about when he was fishing as a teenager. I am a horrible storyteller, even when I have time to consider each of my words, so I won't attempt to convey it on LJ. The essence of it is that there was a fish that had been "dead" for several minutes lying on the shore, he told his friend it was plenty alive, his friend said no way, he said all it needs is a little "spinal tap" of sorts, thwacked the fish on the back of the head, threw it in the water... and of course, the fish wiggled around for a little while and swam away. One of those "holy *expletive deleted*" moments.
My particular Nomad has always been slightly buggy with its battery difficulties, but I had intended to remedy that by purchasing a new (or possibly additional) battery. However, this was indeed a dire situation. The Nomad still booted up, but in "Rescue Mode" (vaguely analogous to the BIOS Setup on a PC). Options are Clean Up, Format All, Reload OS, and Reboot. Clean Up does nothing. Format All displays a dialog box that says Formatting... for quite some time, but never actually does anything. Reload OS gives a screen that says "Hard Disk Problem" (yes, I know, an immediate "uh oh"), and Reboot... well, that one works; but it doesn't help me.
So tonight, with the help of articles from nomadness, I decided to take my JB3 apart and see if I could hit the hard drive into submission. There's a lot of screws on these things. I wish I had pictures throughout the process. I took it all apart... pulled the hard drive out... it was actually pretty cool to look at in its disjointed state.
Anyway, hitting the hard drive did nothing. I was tempted to drop it on the floor, but after a few minutes of contemplation decided otherwise. However, my dad--realizing that nothing else had worked--suggested that we open the hard drive up. I don't know if you've ever taken electronics apart, but this is one of those things that would make you raise your eyebrow and think "Well, I don't suppose we couldn't... but its always seemed like a bad idea." Anyway we took it apart. It looks like a turntable... but a futuristic, 21st century, silicon-on-a-platter sort of turntable. He jolted it back into its normal rotating form (it seems the hard drive hadn't even been spinning) and gave it a 30% chance to live, but... alas... today wasn't the hard drive's day.
Even attempting to install the latest firmware updates and everything hasn't worked. After transferring the data, it just kicks itself back into Rescue Mode. I'm going to see if I can order a new 2.5" hard drive off of ebay or newegg, but shelling out $100 is going to be a pain. However, on the bright side, I can now get whatever size hard drive I want (mmm 60 GB Mp3 player), and I already have experience taking the case apart for the upgrade.
It was fun.
Oh, and the secondary part of the title refers to a story my father related, about when he was fishing as a teenager. I am a horrible storyteller, even when I have time to consider each of my words, so I won't attempt to convey it on LJ. The essence of it is that there was a fish that had been "dead" for several minutes lying on the shore, he told his friend it was plenty alive, his friend said no way, he said all it needs is a little "spinal tap" of sorts, thwacked the fish on the back of the head, threw it in the water... and of course, the fish wiggled around for a little while and swam away. One of those "holy *expletive deleted*" moments.