My computer will not read the player. The buttons light up but there is nothing on the screen. When I unhook it from the computer it will not cut on.

The battery light should turn green, so I suspect you have an open battery.

Try holding down the play/pause button while you hook the cable up. You may have to hold the play button up to 60 seconds before the screen lights up.
Also, try this:
http://voxrightnow.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2200

powersource is good.motherboard might be the problem.harddrive can be tested by putting it in
another computer and see if it boot up.to test the mother board unhook the cd drives and harddrive.turn
on the computer and see if the gateway logo comes on.if it still does the the samething with everything unhooked
then it might be the bios.you might have to flash the bios and reinstall it.to do this i recommend you take it to a
shop.if the comp runs with everything still unpluged and stops then you know that you have a wrong
setting on the harddrive or cd drive.if you got two of anything make sure that you have a slave or master.if you nned me to
write a guide email me at [email protected] or if you got anymore questions.

Have you tried resetting it? Press and hold the setting and menu buttons at the same time for about 6 seconds.

this happened to us also. If it's happening with the lights on, unhook the orange dimmer wire. our would workonly when the lights were off. the second we turned the light on the system would shut off. once we unhooked the orange wire it stopped doing it. we installed it in a 2003 mercury mountaineer.

Very hot = not good - replace the player

For laughs, Try this: disconnect the player from the computer, turn it off, hold in the volume + button, and reconnect the player to the computer while holding the volume + button in. Keep holding the volume + button for an additional 5-50 seconds. Windows should eventually go into recovery mode and revive the player- it will pop up a window that says Found New Hardware Wizard.

I left it alone overnight and when i went to charge it da next morning, it waz workin fine.

Here are instructions on how to use recovery mode procedure to make the mp3
player turn on. Do the following steps:
1. Turn player off. Hold the power button down for 20 seconds to make sure
it shuts down then put the "Hold" switch ON. The Hold switch is located at
the top part of the mp3 player.
2. Now hold the "Record" button while you connect it to the computer. Keep
holding it until it finishes installing the new device.

IF YOU FIND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT THE ZMATE, WILL YOU EMAIL ME? IM TRYING TO FIND OUT WHATS WRONG WITH MY BOYFRIEND"S ZMATE THAT I GAVE TO HIM!! THANKS!! APPRECIATE IT!! : )

I felt like an idiot when I couldn't fix this problem. Take out the battery and put it back in.