River H10 20GB – "System Files Missing" Error & Not Recognized by PC

[xavieraro]

Hi everyone,

I’m having trouble with my iRiver H10 20GB. After the battery died, I replaced it, but now the device only shows a "System Files Missing" error when I turn it on. It won’t boot up properly, and my computer doesn’t recognize it when I plug it in.

I’ve tried using both the original HDD and a CF card mod, but the issue persists. I also attempted to restore it using the original iRiver firmware utility and Rockbox Utility, but the device doesn’t show up in Windows. Instead, I get a "mountpoint unknown or invalid" error.

Has anyone encountered this issue before? Is there a way to restore the system files or get the player working again? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[speachy]

It sounds like you dislodged or damaged the HDD ribbon cable.  The runtime firmware is always loaded from disk, so if the disk is not accessible then rockbox and even the stock firmware cannot be loaded.  This process is handled by iRiver code that resides in flash.

(See https://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-iriverh10/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-130002.2.2 )

[xavieraro]

Thank you! I will replace all the ribbon cables and will let you know.