Anyone Own A Zen 20Gig MP3 Player?

DY357LX

<div class="IPBDescription">This Thing Is Annoying Me.</div>PICTURE OF THE DEVICE IN QUESTION:
<a href="http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/im.php/width/640/im/840_7_Creative_Zen_20Gb.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/im.php/wid...ve_Zen_20Gb.jpg</a>

My mates daughter asked me for help with her mp3 player.
She switched it on this morning to find that her mp3's had vanished. (300 or so of them.)

She wasn't too bothered about this, it was due to be cleaned out anyway. But when she
reconnects it to her pc it doesn't get recognized.

(The Media Manager loads, mp3's can be selected and queued for copying but attempting
to copy from pc to mp3 results in "Transfer Failed". Nothing else. No error messages or nothing.)

We tried connecting it to different USB ports, a laptop and now my home machine.
Nothing's working.

It doesn't show up as a device or HDD in Explorer and Google searches are returning
people with similar problems but no solutions.

I'm now downloading some firmware update and Creatives' MediaManager from
their insanely slow servers.

Any idea's ?

(Is it just me or do the more expensive mp3 players cause more problems that the cheap
512meg etc players? I've seen a £200 player die in under 8 days and a £10 player last for
close to 2 years.)

MedHead

I just did a quick Google search, and it seems like you're not the only one. Many people have Creative players that just suddenly stop working, and the success in returning them to normal seems mixed. Some have had success by installing new or updated software to flashing the player's firmware with a new version. Unfortunately, from what I saw in the few minutes of checking out forums and blogs discussing the subject, the model you mention appears to be one of the versions that has no readily available solution to resurrect the player from its sad, current state.

Fortunately for you, it would appear getting a new one will cost, at most, $100 US from eBay! Yay!

EDIT: Oh, and I should add that something similar to this happened to me and my iPod (yes, I know). It was due to me unplugging the unit from the computer before disconnecting it once, and it ended up corrupting one of the firmware files. After that, it no longer played music - instead, constantly skipping through songs after playing about a second of the file - and wouldn't sync with iTunes any longer. The solution was, unfortunately for you (not so much for me), a total replacement of the iPod. I went into the Apple store and it was replaced, as the staff there couldn't repair the problem, either.

Faskalia

Things I would try:

-firmwareupgrade

-format the player with FAT

-make sure the player is not locked (when my odys player is locked you cannot move files)

-pray that it is not general hardware error

btw: is that a flash player or does it have a real drive?

NeonSpyder

I have the exact same player! \o/

It's awesome. Works great for me, except for that one time I left it off for about 3 months... It had a real tough time coming back to life after that... I did a firmware upgrade as well and it fixed it after I left it plugged into the computer to charge the battery for about 2 days. Yeah, different problem though, sorry =\

Great player though! oh... hold on a tick.

I only have the 8gig model, not 20 gigs. Ah well, close enough. Looks the same anyway.