Update: I fixed the jb3 myself.
Well, 2 of 3 problems.
First, was the hard drive was busted. So I realized swapping out a new HDD looked easy enough. Then I had the dreaded firmware O/S error on start up that would never let my upgrade my firmware. I had f/w 1.10 and wanted to go to 1.40. I kept getting the 'Sorry wrong firmware' message. So I figured it was too big a jump. Then when I tried to go to 1.11 (before going to 1.40) I kept getting the "Firmware error, your player needs to be restarted message." I tried both USB and Firewire on a Windows XP SP2 machine.
Finally, I decided there must be something screwy with my computer, so I tried updating to 1.11 on a Windows 2000 SP4 with firewire. It went through! I updated the drivers and then updated to 1.40. So for any of you that are having the problem with updating firmware, try a few differnt computers and possibly O/S's!!! I wasted enough time trying to FORCE the update on my XP box.
The only OTHER problem I found out about is that the headphone jack is loose, and there isn't sound when I plug in my headphones (needs wiggling.) I noticed the previous owner made an attempt at soldering. How difficult is it to re-solder?