Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB serious problem

i would say upgrade the firmware, check Creative's site if you dont know how

 

Zen Nomad Xtra - to go to Rescue Mode do the following:
1. Insert a pin into the small hole on the left side of the player
below the volume adjustment switch.
2. Hold down the Play button on the right side of the switch
3. Rescue Mode Menu will appear
4. There are 4 Options available, but best option to fix most
problems is reformat hard drive.
5. Reformat is very fast
6. Turn off and reboot.
7. Problem solved.
Dafney-

 

I have a Zen Xtra with a 40GB HD. I have been trying to change music on it and, for some strange reason, I cannot erase the hard drive. When I go to the Rescue Screen and format the HD, it tells me the drive is clean, but after a Reboot, all of the old material is there and they all work. I have tried reloading firmware and it either freezes my desktop machine or doesn't load at all. I know there is a connection because if I disconnect the Zen during the process, the firmware updater requests that I reconnect. If I use either the player or Creatives's software to erase the music, it disappears until I need to do a reset, then all the old music comes back. I also cannot upload any new music at all by any means. Anybody have an idea what might be happening?

 

Reply to Medres:
Problem - Can't get old songs to delete from Zen Nomad Xtra
Solution-
1. Try connecting via USB to Nomad Explorer
2. Delete old songs by selecting and clicking X
3. Stay connected to Nomad
4. Load 35 GB of music or other .mp3 files onto Nomad HD.
5. Exit.

Explanation - Why this works when format and delete failed. You are writing over old songs not just deleting them so old songs which were probably read-only are now written over and gone. Post again if this fails to solve your problem. Dafney-

 

Thank you for the advice. However, I have tried that and it doesn't work. I can eliminate all of the songs and actually have the About section on the Nomad show me the disk is clean. I then try to load songs and it fails every time regardless of the method I use. It even fails when I just try to load songs without erasing anything. I have tried to do this with Nomad Explorer and Media Source on my PC and XNJB on my Mac. The other interesting thing is that I cannot use either machine to form a playlist even with the existing songs. If I erase a large amount of content, the Nomad will show the content as gone and adjust the disk size. Howevwer, as soon as the Nomad does a cold start, the old songs come back and the disk size reflects this. Any thoughts??

 

cafn8's tutorial worked fine for me. My jukebox is running fast and smoothly and i synchronized my music using wmp11.

Thanks a lot!

 

i did a firmware update, but the installer stopped half way through, and now, i have no OS.

is there any place i can go to download one?

 

I just dug up my old 30GB Zen Xtra from a couple years ago, and even though it's USB 1, I wanna use it as an external hard drive with my Mac. Is there anyway to COMPLETELY reformat the drive and use it as general USB removable media?

 

I had the same problem after trying to update the firmware to version 2.x. I've already tried the cafn8 methode but it fails in step 5 because my Windows Xp (SP2) doesn't have a default drive for my Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra and insists in opening the new hardware wizard (even if I check the "connect to Internet to seek new drivers" option). So, if I run the wizard until the end the driver still doesn't install and I got a exclamation mark in hardware manager tab. What's the problem? I'm using a Brazilian Portuguese version of WinXP - maybe the drivers packed are diferent in this distribution? I've tried to install the drivers from Creative but they still don't work. Please help! I need my player back!
Thanks in advance,

 

I'm trying to do this same thing and have been scanning Google for what seems like hours now trying to find some sort of driver for this. I know that I can use XNJB to copy data files to my Xtra, but I'd really like it to be recognized as an external drive so I can use it with iBackup.

 

I had the same problem with mine when i updated. First, did you use a USB Hub to connect to the device while you were updating? I ask this because somewhere someone said that creative told them that USB hubs can have this effect. In any event, the way to fix it or at least the way i fixed it is to completely remove everything related to the MP3 player from your computer. This means you have to go into your control panel then to the system option then to the device manager and delete the entry labeled as Nomad Xtra. After doing this and uninstalling any other creative software then reboot and connect your MP3 player. Then run the firmware upgrade and it should work. I'm using the upgrade and was able to sync with WMP 11. It's very nice. Nevertheless this should work.

However, if it doesn't the best solution to go on someone else's computer and run the firmware upgrade. This should work almost 100% of the time.

Hope this helps...

 

The Windows XP SP1 can't reconize my Zen Xtra, I tried everything

 

To Fix any problems with broken firmware form attempted "playsforsure" firmware updates etc where your pc finds it as a 20mb drive and it sits in recovery mode and does bugger all:
(fix courtesty of cinderlee in creative forums)

1. Uninstall all creative software & drivers
2. Uninstall Media Player 11 and Media Player 11 runtime (will require a reboot for each thing). This is done by going to add/remove programs and uninstalling (this will put your pc back to wmp10).
3. Re-install the Zen Driver from the creative website and reboot
4, Plug Zen in.
5, Make sure you have the firmware update ready, run it but don't click the language bit yet), leave the mouse hovering over your language selection.
6. On the Zen- select "reload OS"
7. As soon as it flashes up "reload new firmware now via USB" click the language button
8. Tada, now the pc should find it and allow you to re-load the firmware. (it may take a few attempts)
9. Once complete, click close and restart the pc. Everything should now be fine.
10. once you are happy you can re-install WMP11 and it will work fine.

Cheers!

 

Good tutorial cdwalker but when I try to put the new firmware it gives me a error "Check your batteries". I think the battery is dead...

 

Hi guy's,

I'm new here, and recently (yeasterday) i've got the same problem with my Zen xTra 30GB.

I've followed the steps that cdwalker describes and everything works fine now. Thanks a lot. It was very usefull.

Regarding the battery problem, i've had it to before i was able to do the update. I figured that a fully charged battery was needed, but no, it only need to be higher than half charge. Check if tha battery graphic when you unplug from AC adapter has 2 sticks. You shouldn't have any problem.

Once again, thank you.

Best regards,

Ivo Silva

 

My Nomad xtra had a "Firmware Problem" after I tried to install the Play4Sure firmware.

I tried everything I could find on and then I stumbled on this page on the creative site.
Updating Firmware on a ZEN MP3 Player After Installing Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2

Buried in it is a pointer to a fix on Microsofts site for DRM enabled players

Update for DRM-enabled Media Players (KB891122)

I applied this patch and I was able to successfully reinstall the failed Play for Sure firmaare. There was no need to install a driver for the Nomad.

 

Hi. I tried the guide posted by cdwalker millions of times, yet still no luck. Even though I have uninstalled all drivers etc, restarted, connected the zen, I have then proceeded to reload OS and then click the language when it asks... But, it still tells the player is not connected. What do I do?! Cheers for all your help guys

 

Hi barno_xvi,

have you uninstalled Windows Media Player? You must have WMP 9. It won't work with 10 or 11.

Also chech your USB cable. My original one was broken and couldn't connect my zen xtra.

I've today updated the harddrive to 40 GB. Rune the same process and everything works great.

Chears.

Best regards,

Ivo Silva

 

Hi IvoSIlva.

Thanks very much for your reply. I managed to do though using media player 10, and using a friend's laptop to reinstall the firmware. It still infuriates me however that I would need to use a friend's and also revert his software etc. Admittably it didn't take more than a few minutes to put it back to normal, but it's just the fact that maybe some people don't have another pc! Thanks all the same for your post though and now it's working, I may not even bother upgrading the hdd. To be honest I was only doing it to see it if works as the other larger hdd I was going to use is far more useful as just a external usb hdd.

Cheers, Barnz

 

Hey all I don't know where to post this but I got my Zen Xtra player re-installed but I forgot how to get my mediasource 5 software to see my Zen player? My Zen nomad explorer can see it fine and I can move files over. I should be able to transfer files with the mediasource. I have Firmware 2.10.03, Drivers 2.01.00, MediaSource Organizer 5.10.38, ZEN Xtra Jukebox Plugin 5.00.22 and NOMAD Explorer 3.01.10. Can anyone please help me thanks, *email removed*