Creative Zen Vision M rescue operation
Introduction
I’ve recently done a rescue operation of a Creative Zen Vision M 30G device that refuses to power up. I’m writing it up so people who have the same problem could find help.
Three primary failure points are:
- battery
- hard drive
- motherboard
Helpful links I discovered:
- various Zen problem discussions and instructions on how to open the thing up: Zen Vision:M Hacks, Mods, & Repairs forum at anythingbutipod.com
- battery might be dead too: Replacement battery LPCS285385
- seeing if the hard drive is alive and extracting the music: ZenRecover – A filesystem recovery tool for the Creative NJB3/Zen™ players
- ZIF to IDE conversion for the 1.8″ hard drive
- 0xED – pretty nice hex editor for OS X

