strange clicking sound

[masterofthepuppets99]

hi peoples, i bought my vision m about two weeks ago. ever since i got it, when i turn it on or off, i hear a clicking noise. it sounds like the arm in the hard drive is hitting the side of the player. i dont like that, its not too loud but i hear it. it also does it sometimes when i take the player off hold. i know its seeking, but is it supposed to do that?

please help me, im stupid

[CrowdAds]

[Almoxil]

Hard disks have "whirring" or "humming" sounds when they're spinning the plates up. I think you should only get worried if the player starts to act up. (refusing to play some files, taking very long to start up, etc)

For more information, take a look at this thread.

By the way, why doesn't Creative release a diagnostic tool for ZV:M's hard disk? It'd be nice to have such a tool when you're unsure about the health of the hard disk.

[TheLoveSquirrel]

My zen vision has been taking longer than it used to to start up (from about 15 secs to 30-45 secs) and is making a louder than usual clicking sound throughout most of the startup time. I'm concerned because there are tremendously important files that i've yet had the opportunity to transfer to my pc. Any suggestions?

[BobbyRS]

Hello TheLoveSquirrel. Welcome.

Any suggestions?

You may want to try a little harder at creating an opportunity to transfer those files over to the computer if you don't already have them backed-up. It sounds as though you have the beginnings of a hard drive failure going on.

[no9]

Originally Posted by masterofthepuppets99

hi peoples, i bought my vision m about two weeks ago. ever since i got it, when i turn it on or off, i hear a clicking noise. it sounds like the arm in the hard drive is hitting the side of the player. i dont like that, its not too loud but i hear it. it also does it sometimes when i take the player off hold. i know its seeking, but is it supposed to do that?

please help me, im stupid

I've had ZVM's for well over 2 yrs. My first was the 30g, and then I got the 60g fatboy when that came out. What size is your ZVM? Used, refurbished, or new? Both players always made some noise but the 60g from day 1 made audible clicking when I changed things. I put 2,600 hrs on that player and never had a problem.

[BobbyRS]

What concerns me here is:

is making a louder than usual clicking sound

....from the same drive. Better to be safe than sorry.

[no9]

Yes I would be concerned. It is a hard drive and they won't last forever.
masterofthepuppets99 I think if yours is new keep an eye on it. I had a Creative Zen Touch(Hd player before the ZVM) that made all kinds of noise and would start playing tracks then just stop and start another track. 2 weeks of that and I got a "sorry your out of luck" screen and the player stopped working. Without hearing it but from your statement that it's not very loud I would say your fine. Just watch out for crazy stuff and as a precaution back up your player.

[BobbyRS]

Yeah, you should always have the files backed-up somewhere (especially easy when using a sync program between the device and the computer) for all files or just the ones you want. I've never really understood why people would not keep a backup of files in some way or the other regardless of being faced with a possible data lose.....unless they truly don't care about the files they have.

[TheLoveSquirrel]

Originally Posted by BobbyRS

Hello TheLoveSquirrel. Welcome.



You may want to try a little harder at creating an opportunity to transfer those files over to the computer if you don't already have them backed-up. It sounds as though you have the beginnings of a hard drive failure going on.

Ya, this is a whole other problem that i'm having. Maybe someone here could help. I'd greatly appreciate it. A while back my computer randomly rebooted and went back to all the default settings. This caused all the music files i had gathered in the windows media player to be erased (from the library, not the hard drive). And every time my computer restarted it would go to all the default settings over and over again. It randomly stopped doing this about a month ago, but now when i try and open Creative mediasource or windows media player, the initial startup screens keep repeating themselves and never open the actual program (side note; i also can't change the desktop wallpaper). Anyone know what has happened to my computer?

[BobbyRS]

Registry corruption maybe..... Sounds like you have done a Registry restore form an earlier time and now any programs installed afterwards may be missing their Registry enteries needed to run correctly. Which program do you want to use for syncing? I would try reinstalling the WMP11 after removing the Creative software for good. It isn't needed and usually causes problems.

Reseting the WMP database can be done in a couple of different ways. I believe you want to make sure that you have your media files on the ZVM backed up because you will need to reformat it so you won't end up with all duplicate files.

1. Make sure no WMP services are running.
2. Make sure no WMP programs are running (check Task Manager).
3. Close IE, Firefox, etc.; bascially anything that can have a WMP plug-in in use.
4. Follow directions from this site.

I also think that if you stop monitoring your music folder(s) in WMP, close WMP, re-open WMP, reset the monitoring of the music folder(s), it should rebuild it's database.