Here are two situations where what seemed to be a hard drive issue initially was easily fixed with the help of my computer.
First of, I was using a AW 1600 with OS 1.01 and A Macintosh with mac OSX, apparently the newer running systems for the AW series don't have this problem anymore. Thought I would mention them anyway unless any one else had the same problems.
1: DEVICE FROZE ON DELETING SONG, FREEZES EVERY TIME I TRY AND ENTER THE SONG LIST.
Notes:
The first time this happened I freaked out and took it to "Long and Mcquade", where I bought it(which is a chain store in Canada, for those in the other countries). Chains like L&M and Guitar Center, are the absolute Worst place to take ANYTHING for repairs (in my experience they just couldn't care less if your all your bands recordings are on the hardrive), I should have called Yamaha Customer Service line right away. Long Story short what I now know was an easy fix cost me hours of unbacked up data and a month without a recording device.How to fix it:
Turn on device, go to Utilities/Usb switch to Usb mode and connect to a computer find the file that caused the 1600 to crash and delete it on the Computer, eject the drive and properly power down your 1600, upon rebooting it should be working again.
2: DEVICE FROZE ON DELETING SONGS, FREEZES ON "LOADING SONG DATA SCREEN" WELL BOOTING UP.
Notes:
This happened to me just today, I wasn't able to enter the Utilities/usb screen because it froze well booting, so I couldn't just delete the song on my Mac. There is a sort of backdoor though, I was able to fix the problem by searching on the internet for an updated running system, I found OS 1.13 on Yamaha's website.To fix this: download OS 1.13 for AW 1600 from Yamaha website, burn the .bin file in the unzipped folder on to a cd-r. turn on you 1600 track and put the CD in the tray.
Power it down.
now Press down the "SONG" and "REMOTE" buttons and hold them down well you power on, this should take you to a different start up screen, that will search the CD for the Updated running system. Follow the intructions on screen very carefully and a newOS will be installed. (assuming your hardrive is in fact not physically damaged, and you burned the CD correctly) now power down turn it on again an VOILA it should be working perfectly. and with all my data still there i might add.
Hope all this helps someone as much as it would have helped me 8 hours ago.
IMPORTANT: it does say on the yamaha website that you are responsible for any damage caused attempting to Update OS, if you aren't %100 sure in your ability to do anything mentioned here give the People at Yamaha Customer Service a call ( a quick suggestion on that matter if the person you are speaking to is rude or unintelligent just thank them for there time and hang up, try back later for someone nice. There is always nice people working at Call centers who will bend the rules and get things done properly, I know because I work at one

.)