I have a MX1000, which is an european version of the saber and there is no way to read the radio or write to it. "radio not connected" is the errormessage i get. The radio transmits and receives well. If i take other mx1000 radios to verify everything is ok, so it cannot be the computer, rib or cable. This is a 100% fact. I also have swapped the case to figure out if the ribbon cable is the problem and checked the contacts at the bottom of radio but this also did not solve the problem. hmm....
What i have noticed is that the radio still makes his radio-on alert tones if it is connected to the service/programming cable, my other mx-radios do not produce this tones when connected to the service/prog-cable, you don't hear anything from the speaker when switching them on because the audio goes into the servie/prog-cable to the servicemonitor.
I think the problem has to be a bad component on the pcb board, transistor, diode etc which is needed for programming. No broken solderpoints to see on the pcb. regards.