Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB serious problem

Hey guys, guess what my player wont work. When i turn it on it displays the logo, the HDD spins and stops after a minute. It doesnt go into the menu, it just stops at the logo and thats it. Just yesterday I've updated the firmware to the newest one called "Plays For Sure", yeah plays my a**. I updated it in hopes of making it compatible with media players without the need of installing drivers or anything special. Well it played after i updated. Til today. It happened to stop working when I was deleting albums i didnt need through my player, not through the Creative Media Source application. I guess thats all the details i could give u guys of what happened. Ive even tried researching this online and nothing. I cant even go into the Rescue Mode. What the **** is going on, and pardon my language, but im mad as ****.

 

hello does anyone know how to get itno the Rescue Mode?

 

i hope it's still under warranty; it sounds like a faulty player to me. i've had my creative forever now and it's been nothing like that, but i've heard of similar things happening. if firmware updates and all that isn't fixing it,i'd say the internal hard drive is going. even if it's out of warranty, you could pull a buy and return to get a new one, if it's in good shape, lol.

 

dude its the same problem with me, only i don't know what i did to it to make it *bleep* up all the time. it was like 3 months ago i got it and something funny started happening with it. it would turn on and go to the EAX logo and then i would hear the gears in it start spinning for about a minute, then it stops and goes straight to rescue mode. I've looked this up online and everything and can't find *bleep*. I really hope you read this and get back to me with any info you can, this is a reallyyy good mp3 player and i'd hate to have it go to waste. thanks alot.

 

Can i buy a replacement HDD, i found he exact same one online for $90. Can i buy it, connect it, and will it work. How will i be able to install the firmwarew on it. Has anyone ever tried this before, cause i dont want it to go to waste when i buy it.

 

im pretty sure that its just a normal laptop hdd in there,
awhile ago my OLD mp3 player wasn't working so i tried replacing it with a normal laptop hdd in it and it did work, but then eventually stopped. but i mostly believe that is because the actual mp3 player hardware was broken, it was very old.

it was an Archos 6000 hehe look that up on google and try not to laugh at the pics

so in conclusion, i believe it will work, however it is a sorta a large risk to take, also if you do try it, make sure you dont get more than a 30gb because the hardware MAY not support anything larger than what its supposed to

 

i already found the exact same HDD online that my MP3 player has, though im not sure how im supposed to load the firmware on it. Until then im stuck, im gonna wait til i get an answer. Til then it sits in one a box waiting and waiting...

 

all you do is replace the hdd, hook it up throgh USB, it should read it as an external hdd, then put the firmware on it, i dont see why doing that wouldnt work

 

By hooking up you mean hook it up to the PC using the MP3 Player hardware, just replace the old HDD and install the firmware, hell if it sounds that easy ill order the HDD even this week. YUPI.

 

thats exactly what i mean, i dont see why it wouldnt work, but there's also a chance it wont

 

I do hope I'm catching you in time, but the sad news is you can't simply plug in the hd after play for sure firmware. You've probably looked around already and realized you're about the 400th person at least to experience this problem after upgrading. Now see normally you could just plug in a new hd but the reason your mp3 player isn't currently starting is the the firmware on it is broken. As such it doesn't have the mechanism to reformat the hd. Also, your current hd is probably fine. As I moved onto linux shortly after this same thing happened to me I can only offer limited help but what tends to be the issue is that the firmware loading crashed in the middle. The reason this happened is that the firmware broke all your usb drivers. I am being completely serious, you can check the creative forums, but for some reason the asses over at creative have seen these issues and have left the firmware out just because microsoft told them so. Ain't that great? Anywho what you want to do is remove all usb drivers (some mechanism through control panel) and then windows will start yelling at you that it found new hardware. Just let them all load automatically and then plug in your player hit reload os in the rescue mode and then run the new firmware program again. This time it should go to completion and your player should boot. Oh and also as an added bonus you can no longer use whatever programs you used to use for jukebox communication. You must use their new set.

please tell if you need more assistance,
Phantm

 

i forgot how i get into Rescue Mode

 

Reset while holding play and keep holding till it comes up in rescue mode.

 

Phantm I am having a very similar problem and any direction would help. Here is what happened. Tried to update to the new firmware (2.10.03) update failed in the middle. All i get when i tried to turn on the player is the rescue mode screen. Try to re run the updated on the PC and says it cannot run because my player is not connected. Unplug usb and plug back in windows sees the device and says it is connected and working fine try to re run the firmware on PC no change says the device is not connected and will not start. Any body have any ideas where to start would be greatly appreciated. Oh and when i power it on or reset it i get an message that flashing on the screen for about 1 sec that says firmware problem (No S**T)

 

Have you:
Gone into device manager, selected all usb drivers, right-clicked, and uninstalled?

If not, do so before coming back, and in the future please take the care to read through all of the previous posts before needlessly trolling in your own.

My apologies for harshness, you catch me at a bad time,
Phantm

 

I did as you said I removee all usb drivers let them auto load, then plugged in my player hit reload os in the rescue mode and then run the new firmware program. But it keeps saying Your Player is not connected. Please connect your player.

 

Hello all,

I'm having the same problem, I updated the firmware on my 30 gig Zen Xtra from the stock 1.03 to the bad-idea-1.20 update.. I have all the same problems but Phntom, I am not clear with how to ::REMOVE USB DRIVERS:: , i don't know if that's internal, menu, software... can someone please make clear of this for me? thanks...

qt. Phantm, "Anywho what you want to do is remove all usb drivers (some mechanism through control panel)"

 

ok...i set up an account on this site just to reply to you guys.

i tried to upgrade my firmware yesterday, and it failed too. so then i was in a state of limbo. i tried uninstalling drivers, etc and nothing worked. there is no way that i can find to get rid of all of the drivers. i'm sure there is a way, but i can't figure it out.

i emailed support. they told me that my player was too old. i told them that i did not want support on an old player, but on a current firmware version on their site that their KB told me to install.

anyway, i figured out a solution.

go to another machine that has never had the device installed (even if it is a friend's machine). plug in the device and windows will load the default drivers for the device. go download the firmware update again on that machine and run it. it works fine.

 

I can't believe I went to all the trouble of subscribing to this site just to post this message. This thread comes up fairly high in a Google search, though, so here's some additional information that I hope will help others.

Most of the information in this thread is useful, but it won't get you up and running if your computer uses Windows Media Player 11 and/or has the Creative PlaysforSure drivers for the Zen Xtra.

I just upgraded my Zen Xtra to a 120Gb drive (Fujitsu MHV2120AH-R, PATA 5400RPM). Getting past the firmware setup was ugly. But now it works. Here's what I did:

1.) Use this procedure to upgrade the hardware: http://home.mchsi.com/~sallad/zen/tutorial.html _BUT_ -- stop after step 7 (formatting the hard drive). Do not connect your Nomad to your computer until step 5.

2.) If you had Plays for Sure drivers installed, or Windows Media Player 11 (beta or otherwise) installed, you will need to uninstall it. Follow the uninstallation procedures in the WMP release notes to roll back to WMP 10: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi...aspx#RollingbacktoapreviousversionofthePlayer
(Note that if you have DRM'ed music or video files, you're probably going to be screwed in the rollback because those files will no longer be playable.)

3. Now go into Add/Remove programs and remove everything having to do with Creative Nomad or other Creative media drivers .

4. Reboot your machine one last time.

5. Connect your Nomad to the computer. If you're lucky, a balloon should appear at the bottom of the tray saying it successfully found your device and it is working correctly. If this is true, you are ready to load the firware and should go to step 6, else go to 5a.

5a.) Go into Device Manager (From Start menu, select Run, type "devmgmt.msc" and press enter).
5b.) At the top of the screen, highlight your computer and press "*" on the numeric keypad (this will expand all of the devices in Device Manager). You're looking for a device that looks like the Nomad. On my machine, it was listed under "Portable Devices" and the device was called "NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra". It had an exclamation point it, too. Highlight this device, right click on it, and select "Uninstall".
5c.) Disconnect your Nomad
5d.) Wait 10-15 seconds.
5e.) Reconnect the Nomad. Go back to Step #5.

6.) Run the playforsure firmware upgrade, ZenXtraP4SAudible_PCFW_LB_2_10_03.exe .

7. The upgrade should detect your device this time and let you install it. After the upgrade completes, disconnect your player from the computer and reboot it to make sure that it is now working correctly.

8.) Reinstall the PlaysforSure driver.

At this point, you should be able to reinstall WMP11. Anyway, this worked for me and now I basically have twice the capacity, with a faster hard drive that gives slightly better battery life. Your mileage may vary.

-D

 

Please, i need your help. My Zen Xtra 30gb got a problem. When i turn on, it freezes at start screen (the EAX logo). Do you have any solution for this problem?