Creative Zen Microphoto

try this website

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22836

My Zen Micro Photo stopped working a few months after I got it. It would load to the creative screen and get stuck and I could hear it making an awful sound. And my computer would no longer recognize it although it would charge. After trying all of Creative's tips for fixing it I gave up and put it in a box and forgot about. Skip ahead a few years, I found it and decided to try again.

After scouring the web for possible solutions the one that seemed to have the best probability of success was the "Caveman Method."
1) Take the battery out.
2) Give it 5 or 6 good whacks on the table
3) Put hold the power button down while inserting the battery to go in to recovery mode.
4) Run the clean app.
5) After it finishes running it will rebuild the library and work as it should.

After you turn on the and the player stays on the 'Creative' screen, this is what you need to do. This worked for me (I saw this solution somewhere on line) take the battery out and hit the the player on something hard, put the battery back in and try to start it up. It took about 7-8 smacks to get it to work (I think I was being too gentle at first) but it did work. I was ready to get a new MP3 player but thought, what did i have to lose. There is a moving part inside that gets sucks and jarring the loose is fixes the problem. Hope this works for you. I have read this has woked for many people.

I had exactly the same problem and you are probably where the unit would turn on and freeze at the “Creative” introductory screen. You are probably not going to like the answer but you have one of two problem, i.e.;

(1) The motherboard has failed
(2) The hard-disk has failed

You can tell which one is at fault by listening to the device when you first turn it on and the “Creative” screen comes up. If the disk start to hum continually then it is the motherboard that is at fault and I am afraid that probably means the unit needs to go back to Creative as there is no easy way to repair this. If on the other hand you hear the disc repeatedly start to rotate and then stop after a few seconds then the hard-disk has failed. This can be replaced at quite a low cost.

The first thing to do is to take the unit apart. There are some very good videos on “You Tube” explaining how to do this. I used this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3q5F1fppo . Once you have the hard-disk out then I managed to get a direct replacement for US$ 16.99 from a company in Hong Kong via E-Bay. This included all the shipping costs from Hong Kong to the UK. The company was “Dream Macys” - http://www.DreamMacys.com/ . I then carefully put the unit together again and reloaded the firmware from the Creative Zen website - http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=213&CatName=MP3+Players&subCatID=214&subCatName=ZEN&prodID=14107&prodName=ZEN+MicroPhoto and it now works fine again. I am currently loading the music back on to the disk……

Wow. Honestly i can't believed it worked. I just tried the Caveman Methode. Seriously just smack that mother on the table like 5 times, recover that ******, and clean em up.