Well, it finally happened to me.

My 002R got the flu. Last night I powered up my rack, turned on some hard drives, and started Pro Tools, only to get a “Can Not Detect Hardware” message. Crap.

For a few minutes I blamed the cats. I assumed that they must have chewed through my 25′ firewire cable, but it was intact. I checked the unit with a new firewire cable but it still would not connect.

Here’s the symptoms:

1. 1394 light on the back of the unit doesn’t light or goes out right after plugging in a firewire cable.
2. Mute button won’t un-mute.
3. Pro Tools “Can Not Find Hardware” error messages.

The above are usually accompanied by a swift feeling of dread and worry about the check book.

Here’s what you do.

002R’s are certainly not under warranty anymore, so don’t call Digidesign Tech support and expect a new unit. Instead, they will tell you to call the Pay-Support line ($2.50 a minute). Don’t worry, they won’t charge you, but you will have to enter a credit card number to get to talk to a support rep. Tell them you’ve got the dreaded power-harness issue and they will ship you a replacement power harness free of charge. You’ll need your serial number off the back of the unit (it’s right above the firewire connections).

They shipped my replacement same-day and free of charge. The service was excellent.

I’ll post some picture of the repair once the new power harness arrives.

UPDATE 7/13/09:

Well, I’m back up and running. In fact I have been for a few days with no issues to report whatsoever. The repair process was simple and even came with decent instructions. The short explanation is this: open the unit by removing the 14 screws on the top. Remove the old harness (noting the polarity of the cables, trust me, take a picture). Clean the terminals with the included contact cleaner (thanks Digi), install new harness (polarity!) and put cover back on. Simple.

I only had 1 problem… I screwed up the polarity of the cable and couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. I had the unit re-assembled and all my plugs and wires hooked back up and it wouldn’t power on. It was dead. It was my fault. I felt a strong feeling of dread come over me as surely I had fried the unit by reversing the polarity of the main power harness… but thank God for whatever engineer laid that thing out. I’m not saying you can’t fry it by hooking it up backwards, but mine didn’t fry and I had it wired backwards (doh!).

Anyhow… here’s the last picture I was able to snap before my camera died. If you forget how your cable was hooked up, check it against this. If the colors don’t match look for which pins they left empty. That should get you on the right track.

Back to making music,

James

761mph.com