at last! my Creative Zen has been revived! Special thanks to Mino! wahahahaha
as promised:
PROBLEM:
a. ‘Firmware Problem’ error message on Startup and
b. Player cannot be recognized in ANY PC
SOLUTION:
while others might tell you to download the mp3 player recovery tool from Creative or upgrade the Firmware with the latest version… that won’t just work if you’re having problem b hand-in-hand with a.
so the first thing you should do is perform a hard format (mino taught me this bwahaha i’m so thankful).
how to:
a hard format is basically a formatting process made on the device itself, without any valid link/connection to a PC.
Turn off your Creative Zen by inserting a thin object on the reset button of your device. I figured this is the only way of shutting down the player in my case because the on/off button on the side won’t respond.
then, PRESS AND HOLD the play/pause button while turning on the player (with the normal turn/off switch).
TAKE NOTE that you must press and hold FIRST before turning the device on. and you must still be holding the button while the device is turning on.
doing those correctly will lead you the recovery menu with just the right options you need to save your device. if i remember correctly, the options were:
Format All
Upgrade Firmware
Reboot
Rebuild
select FORMAT ALL. you should be aware that all existing files currently present in your player will be deleted after the process.
select yes then, proceed to Rebuild.
your player must now be working well. 🙂
hope this helps. 🙂