batteries and bad karma::05.12.2008+02:12
Tonight as I was investigating support for my Rio Karma
in Linux, I pressed down on it lightly while it was accessing the drive and it made a horrible whirring noise.
Obviously, this was not a good sign, so I looked at the case more carefully and lightly tried it again.
Same thing. The case seemed to be bulging slightly at the bottom, and I knew that it had never made these
sounds before, so I did what any concerned, out-of-warranty product owner would. I disassembled it.
As it turns out (and as can be seen in the picture to the right) the battery was bulging. This is the
second most common issue to plague this device, the first being a broken hard drive. So, I’m kinda lucky,
as it seems that Hitachi isn’t making the IDE interface drives that this uses anymore. I bought a replacement
battery on eBay and well, I’ll see how things go once it comes.
