I had changed to Vista since the last time I synched with the Zen, so it was assumed that this was the problem. After some research it appeared that the firmware would have to be upgraded on the player before it would talk to Vista. Unfortunately the firmware would have to be upgraded from a PC that could talk to the player.
I have an XP laptop that I could use for this so it shouldn't be a problem. Well that's the theory anyway. Unfortunately as it turns out the problem is not Vista, it is Media Player 11. Even though my XP laptop would talk to the Zen, because I had upgraded to Media Player 11 the firmware upgrade failed.
This left me with an MP3 player that stuck in Recovery Mode. I tried all the options on the player but basically it had no firmware anymore and was a complete loss. There is an option in recovery mode that allows you to delete the current firmware and reload it from a PC. That sounds fine but the firmware upgrade that I got from the Creative website would no longer recognise that the player existed. It seems that once the firmware upgrade application had deleted the current firmware and then rebooted the Zen, a PC with Media Player 11 would not be able to recognise the player so the new firmware could be applied.
I did some more research and found a lot of conflicting information. What worked for me though was rolling back Media Player 11 to Media Player 10, then the firmware upgrade application could recognise the player and install the new firmware.
I read in a few places that the roll-back to Media Player 10 did not fix this problem, however rolling-back to version 10 is not straight forward so these people probably did not do it correctly. I never run with System Restore turned on, but I suppose if you do then you might be able to roll-back to version 10 using that method, although who knows what else you would lose. These are the steps I followed:
- Unplug the MP3 player from the PC.
- Open Control Panel.
- Start Add or Remove Programs.
- Find Windows Media Player 11, and then remove it.
- Allow the roll-back routine to finish and then reboot.
- Start Add or Remove Programs again.
- Find Windows Media Format 11 Runtime, and then remove it.
- Reboot again.
- Start Add or Remove Programs again.
- Find Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Feature Pack 1.5, and then remove it.
- In Add or Remove Programs tick the box at the top labelled Show Updates.
- Look through all of the updates that appear and remove any that refer to Media Player 11. I think I found about 3 updates.
- Reboot
- Run the Firmware upgrade application available from the Creative website support section.
- Reinstall Media Player 11 - because it is pretty cool.
- Tell your partner that you have fixed it and receive smiles and/or hugs.
This advice is provided, as is, follow it if you want I take no responsibility. Creative would probably tell you to return the player to them. Even if it is not in warranty I'm sure that they would fix a firmware issue.
7 comments:
thanks for the info. i have problem though - i was upgrading my zen touch and it got stuck in firmware update. so now it says "Zen touch" on screen and that's it. i tried force rebooting it but still returns to that screen. when i try to run the firmware update again, it says the player isn't connected. any idea how to get the player to respond again? thanks!
Hi Ian,
Unfortunately you can only update the firmware on a zen touch by connecting it to a computer that has Windows XP and Windows Media Player 10. You need to get a computer like that and then you will be able to connect your zen touch to it, and run the update.
If don't want to go through all this trouble then I would bet that Creative will fix this for you. Even though you are out of warranty, I would think that they will fix a firmware problem. You would probably have to pay the postage though.
It looks like Creative has finally admitted this problem with their firmware update software, as they have published this article.
The chances are that your computer has Windows Media player 11. You can check this by clicking the Start button and going to All Programs-->Windows Media Player. Once Media Player has started press the Alt key and the H key at the same time, then press the A key.
If you have Media Player 11 then you can follow the instructions in the article above to downgrade it back to Media Player 10. Or you might be able to find a friend with an older PC, who will let you install the Creative drivers and then run the update from their PC.
Good Luck!
CAUTION: Record your music in analog before you try this firmware update. Otherwise the music you paid for goes na na hey hey GOODBYE! Did the music industry want this? What a scam.
Half of XP software doesn't install so you must buy Vista software. Did software makers pay off Microsoft? Just like the Zen Touch debacle and your songs going to the great MP3 player in the sky.
Thanks so much for sharing how to upgrade the firmware of the Zen Touch.
I cannot understand why is this exact explanation NOT on Creative's support site.
***THIS WORKED***
For all of you that want to get their music out of the Zen touch, and are stuck with Vista and 1.01.03 firmware (non vista recognisable), and don't want to erase everything by installing the latest firmware, here is what worked for me:
1)Uninstall every piece of Touch software you got and reboot.
2) Download the latest drivers from Creative: JB3MV2...exe, together with the latest Nomad explorer, and the latest Notmad explorer from Red Chair (a trial is enough, version 9.0.3 currently).
3) Right click the driver, properties, go to compatibility mode, and select Windows XP SP2. Make sure your Zen is unplugged (worked for me that way). Right click the driver installer again and Run as Administrator. It hanged around 72% for me, no biggy, open your task manager and shut the installer off.
4)Before rebooting, install Notmad explorer.(I installed only the Zen touch part of it. I tried to run it right away but got a 'cannot find explorer.exe error - again, no biggy).
5) Reboot, plug in your Zen. Again for me, Notmad didn't work. This is what worked: Without messing up anything, install Nomad Explorer by Creative on top of it all, and reboot again.
6) After reboot, with your Zen still plugged in, right click the little Notmad icon on the right part of the taskbar and select 'Connect Jukebox Zen'. And voila, check your explorer, it should hopefully recognise the Zen Touch like windows xp would.
If you still run into trouble, just install stuff from the beggining, making sure Compatibility: WinXP SP2 and Run as Admin are used everywhere, and keep rebooting till it hopefully works.
Best of luck.
So I have a computer that has Windows XP, and a laptop that has vista. My laptop crashed, was fixed, and now is basically brand new. My question is will I lose any music in this process when I try to update it using the XP computer? I have about 3000 songs on my player, and it would be a royal pain to lose everything. Thanks so much for the posts, they are just a little bit confusing at the moment.
Hi Mike,
Unfortunately I did a full reset on my Zen when i was having problems with it. That meant that I lost all my mp3's.
I don't think that updating your firmware should delete all your mp3's but I can't guarentee it.
Good Luck
Ben
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