Creative Zen Xtra hacked

Well, well, looks like I finally got down to physically hacking my old Creative Zen Xtra. The last time I tried something, I really screwed it up and had to load all my music back in again. I have written about this before also. I did read up on the net some months back (in fact, it has been more than a year back) about how you can physically install a larger capacity laptop hard drive on the Creative Zen Xtra mp3 player. I got some information off PimpSalad and ZenUpgrade (which no longer exists) about how you can change the hard drive on the player. Sure, this voids your warranty but who is going to give warranty for a player thats even off Creative's web-site? :)

I had bought the hard drive more than a year back but never could lay my hands on a 0 size screw-driver. Just a few weeks back got one off a chinese place and wonder of wonders, it worked great. Ripped open the player, installed the new hard drive and plugged it into the USB on the computer. Started off with the firmware screen and I had to download the new firmware and re-install it again (I already had the latest firmware). Then formatted the player and there you have it - an 80 GB hard drive in a Creative Zen Xtra.



Done!

Creative Zen Xtra

Woohoo.......my mp3 player is back on track. After a real screw-up with my Creative Zen Xtra, I'd lost all the songs on it. I had 4816 songs on em. But I'd gone home last weekend to meet my sister and good that Joel had a backup of most of the songs on his computer. Thanks dude. I owe you one!!. Cool, so my music collection is back!!.



You can see a hazy number at the top corner of the screen on the player. Magic number 4114.

Creative Zen Xtra

Damn, I lost it all....all 4816 songs that I had in my Creative Zen Xtra player. Damn, was deleting some songs since I didnt have space in the player, it froze up and didnt come back on until I re-installed the firmware. And this naturally, destroyed all data. Damn!!. Well, taking a new turn. Adding songs again. This time, also thinking of getting a new laptop hard-drive that I can fit into the player, probably a 60 Gig drive. Damn again!.

In fact, I have been re-searching on the net and came across some great links where they have steps on how to remove the old hard drive on the Creative Zen Xtra player and put in a larger one. Two of the best that I came across were from PimpSallad and another by ZenUpgrade. You can access these links by you know clicking the mouse when the pointer turns to a hand!!.

And for all those people having a hard time upgrading the firmware on the Zen players, you can access these links too!.

Have fun and wish me luck on getting back all the songs I need and also in getting a new hard drive for the player. Fuck warranties!!..