Retell, i appreciate the help. i just tried your suggestion and that screen still appears. but this time i left the sd card in after i reset it for 5 seconds, and it seems like the pioneer logo comes up, then that screen come up, then it resets automatically with the pioneer logo, then goes into windows ce. is that supposed to happen? am i supposed to take the sd card out? im stuck now, i have read that it may have something to do with the polarity, so worst case scenio, i will take out the unit and mess around with the unattached wire.