Failed Firmware Update and Stuck in Recovery Mode

[Tatl]

Hi

So, a couple of days ago, my ZVM froze, which isn't all too uncommon, so I simply hit the reset button. When it loaded, it started to rebuild. I turned it off for the night, but the next morning when I turned it back on, it went straight to the Recovery Mode.

I cleaned up the disk and rebooted it, but that didn't work. I read around and decided to update the firmware. Luckily I had a WinXP computer so I was able to get the firmware to recognize my ZVM. I reloaded the firmware and updated it and it had said it was successful. I restarted it and all of a sudden "Firmware Problem" shows up on the screen.

So I tried formatting, reloading, and restarting the player. After trying a few times, the error stopped showing up, but it was stuck on the Zen screen. The hard drive would be spinning and then all of a sudden, it would stop.

Then I tried to get it back to the Recovery Mode and it worked, but it's still stuck on in that mode. Every attempt to update the firmware fails. The Clean Up option now doesn't work. It just says "Scan Disk..." and stays there. I can click on that option again to get rid of that pop up.

Today, I tried updating the firmware again and another error shows up "Hard Disk Problem". I took apart the player to see any of the wires were loose. Now, that error doesn't show up, but it is still in Recovery Mode.

Another thing I noticed was that it said that my ZVM has 50mb storage. I read that that was the partition in the hard drive where the firmware was stored and me being able to see if meant that the firmware wasn't loaded. However, it says that the version is 1.62.02_0.0.23.

Sorry for the wall of text, but is my ZVM salvageable?

[CrowdAds]

[dnlbntl]

This isn't within my realm of experience but it may be a failing HDD - as in the player getting just far enough to not show "Hardware failure" but nothing further.

Until they make terabyte PMPs under $500 (or at all) and/or eBay absolutely runs out of parts, ZVMs will always be salvageable, for me at least. For others, it's just a matter of how much they want to spend/risk on self-repair and if that's less than the cost of new player of greater or equal ability.

[Tatl]

Oh, that's right! I forgot about swapping out parts. So if I get a working HDD and swap it with my failing one, my ZVM should work.

Thanks for the suggestion^^

Btw, do you know how to replace the bottom half of the face plate? The part of the plate below and above the vertical scroll is cracked.

[dnlbntl]

The navigation/playback buttons involve taking the player completely apart. Since you already know how to get it started, further disassembly's fairly straightfoward - unscrew every screw you see.

Didn't catch the specifics of your player so I'll link what I can find (not including S&H):
Frame and green button assy. ($12.74 used US)
Frame and black button assy. ($6.99 used US)
Black outer covers (≈$16.02 new UK)
White outer covers (≈$19.23 new UK)

[Tatl]

I see. I stopped before I took off those screws, so that doesn't sound too bad.

Oh, I have a ZVM 30GB.

Thank you^^ I actually was looking for parts on ebay and saw that some people were selling their old functioning ZVMs. I might try and get my hands on one of them since it includes both the cover and HDD. Hopefully, it doesn't get too high though. Any idea how much they usually go for?

[dnlbntl]

Here's the list of used ZVM auctions, note the non-working one (it appeared at the top of my results).

This is the cheapest used 'Buy It Now' option I found at $85.00 with $3.50 standard US shipping.

Don't know if you have a ZIF or pin hard drive so for the sake of knowing opporitunity cost:
30GB ZIF ($14.99 used US)
30GB pin ($24.99 new China)

Note that, if the player has a ZIF ribbon, you can upgrade your capacity to 120GB for around $70 if it's worth it to you (several thousand high bitrate files or scads of mid-low bitrate files). I'm not too caught up on IDE/pin drives so I'll have to read up on that.

[jamganz]

FWIW, I have a working 30g hdd with the pins connection and a 60g Toshiba hdd if you are interesting is purchasing cheap. I'm not using and would like to get rid of. The 60g would require and zif connector but i saw one on ebay recently and it was inexpensive. PM me if you;re interested. Good luck w/ repair nevertheless!

[Tatl]

Update:
Sorry for the late response, but I purchased a replacement hdd and now my ZVM is working again, though I messed up the case a bit after I put everything back wrong....but! It works and I'm pretty happy about that so thank you for all your help dnlbntl!

@jamganz - Sorry, I had ordered an hdd before you posted. Thanks for the offer though and good luck selling them :]