broken mp3 player

hostyle

I dropped my Zen NX about a week ago, and it can no longer find a hard drive.

So I opened it up (warranty is well past), took out two of the four screws easily, and ruined the heads on the other two (hardware and drink do not mix so well).

Anyone got any ideas on what to do next? I've no access to a drill to take the heads off the two remaining screws, so thats out. I don't have the funds to currently buy a new mp3 player either.

The plan was to see if the HDD cable had become loose, if not then put it in my PC to see if it was salvageable, and if not put in a second hand HDD. Has anyone done this before? Or am I wasting my time?

Alkers

Have a look on www.nomadness.net

J-blk

I used the HDD out of my old Zen Xtra in a 2.5" USB enclosure... Though your HDD may not be dead after dropping it, the data will not be salvagable. If you drop it into a USB enclosure or even put it in a PC (laptop or even a desktop with a suitable adapter), Windows will have no idea what it is, because of the file system. You'll have to set up a new partition on the drive and then format it to FAT32 or NTFS, losing all data in the meanwhile. But.. you may get mileage out of the HDD as an HDD only, rather than an MP3 player.

Assuming the current HDD is dead, if you can find a suitable 2.5" inch HDD to use in your player and you can fit it in without destroying the PCB and connections, then all you have to do is enter the player's Recovery Mode (hold down Play/Pause and stick a straightened paper clip into the reset hole on the left) and use the Format All option to format the replacement HDD and make it usable by the Zen. Though putting the Zen back together is kind of akin to microsurgery .

As the man already said, nomadness.net is a great resource on things like this.

An extensive guide to replacing the HDD on the original Zen (very similar process to the NX though) can be found here:

http://www.blurbdesigns.com/ZenUpgrade/index1.htm?Submit=Take+me+to+the+Guide%21%21

hostyle

J-blk wrote:

An extensive guide to replacing the HDD on the original Zen (very similar process to the NX though) can be found here:

http://www.blurbdesigns.com/ZenUpgrade/index1.htm?Submit=Take+me+to+the+Guide%21%21

Ah, very good. It seems that I was probably messing with the wrong screws (internal ones) - although the ones on the back (not bottom) are tiny altogether. Will have to be even more careful with them. I'll have another go at opening it up and popping the drive into my PC this evening / weekend. I need to know if the drive is damaged or just loosened. Data is not important and easily replaced.

Thanks for the links guys.

hostyle

After browsing around nomadness it seems a lot of people were voting for the motion of slapping the mp3 player off something while turned on, against my better judgement. I tried it, and it worked Unbelievable.

J-blk

Now, you know why the site is called noMADNESS!

Cool that i'ts working again though...

Oh, and now may be a great time to backup any data/music on it!