Zen Micro Photo...freezes at Creative Logo

Your hard drive is dead..you need to replace it with a compact flash card drive..check in the forum for a 'How to...'

if it's able to be recognized by your computer, try uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling them, to do so go to start>control panel>system>hardware>device manager- then find your device under removable storage(most likely) and right click and click on uninstall....then reboot the computer, once it's rebooted, plug in the zen again and reinstall the drivers...if you don't have the drivers, here they are. then after that (if it doesn't work) update the firmware here

same problem with mine :(

hard drive shot you can try to reformat it
http://serviceman.site88.net/

I just found this on another website and it seems to be working so give it a shot


Listen!!!!! Anyone having problems try this before you blame the product. Turn off player........remove battery.......hold on button ON and put battery back in while still holding the power button on. When power comes on release the power button. You should now see a clean format and re-boot screen. Use the clean function two times. After the second time go down to reboot and should be fine. Worked for me. The Zen Micro Photo is a sweet mp3 player. Dont blame the product for something YOU most likely did. This will fix 99% of your players problems

The microdrive is bad. You'll need to buy another player, since its too expensive to buy the microdrive; it costs more than half what the player costs.

I suppose that you have a bad hardisk. I have repaired several models of Creative Zen including the hardisk types (Zen Micro, Microphoto, Neeon, Zen 20 Gbytes, and your problems points to a bad hardisk symptoms. Either the disk or the read/ write head stuck up. Do you hear clicks in the player upon startup? If yes, then do the following procedures: If you're out of warranty, then you might want to open your player, and do some repair yourself, but be very careful. Somebody has posted on how to dismantle the zen microphoto, please search for the site. Once you got to the hardisk, carefully remove it from the player... Remove the sticker. There's some holes in the cover, can you see the disk and the read/ write shaft? Insert a piece of wire or anything that can be used to move the shaft a little, again be very careful. AVOID SCRATCHING THE DISK OR, Move it to the right. If you're lucky to have just a jammed or stucked shaft, then you just save bucks. Replace everything and test your player. You might want to modify your player by replacing the hardisk into a compatible compact flash. it is the same size and same pinouts. A step-by-step procedure has been posted somewhere, please search for that. If you're player powers up and freezes on creative logo, or go to the recovery mode directly, then your player still works, and you just got a hardisk problem. try replacing it. I'm lucky enough to have a warehouse in my area here in the Philippines who sells surplus Creative mp3 players (various models and products)for a very cheap price, sold asis. So I have ample stocks of boards and parts for my repairs.

Solution ID # 4794 from creative site ZEN Micro and ZEN MicroPhoto 1. Make sure that the battery is charged. 2. Detach the ZEN Micro or MicroPhoto from the PC, and ensure that it is turned off. 3. Remove the battery. 4. Move and hold the Power button to the Power On position and re-insert the battery to the ZEN Micro or MicroPhoto. Hold the Power button until the Recovery Mode appears. The following options will be displayed: -Clean Up : Scans the player and removes invalid links from its music library.Does not affect music files themselves. -Format (All):Caution! Erases all content!Save a copy of your player's content before formatting. -Reload OS/ Firmware : Caution! Erases your player's firmware. DO NOT select the Reload Firmware option unless you have access to a PC and you have downloaded the necessary firmware to install. Reboot Reboots the device.

it is more likely the motherboard. try to download the firmware. if it is still doing it, then you are going to have to get the motherboard replaced. regards, connie

Sounds like it may be the index in your Music Library. Try going into Recovery Mode; remove battery, hold power switch to ON, replace battery, release power switch when the Recovery Mode screen appears on the screen. Run Option 1 CleanUP, after it completes run Option 4 Restart. You will get a Rebuilding Library screen when it reboots, that's normal, then it should go back to your startup screen. Good luck and let us know what happened