Windows XP?!

[swee'pea99]

Different cable?

Tried three - same difference.

Tried turning it on/off whilst plugged in. Found New Hardware showing in the bottom right hand corner.

Doesn't do that. It just makes that bing bong noise to register something's been connected. (And again if you unplug it.)

How did you get music onto the Zen originally?
I had one many years ago and I had to use some app from Creative to download everything onto it. I think it was just at the time I upgraded to Vista that I found that I would need to upgrade the firmware. Only after I had done that would the Zen appear as a device in file manager. I assume you would need to go to the Creative website to get the appropriate firmware and whatever else is needed. The catch is that you lose whatever was on it by doing the upgrade.

Now there's a good question. To which the only real answer is, I can't remember. It was quite a while ago. I think I did it using an old desktop pc, which I no longer have. But beyond that, like I say I'm afraid I just don't know. Have to say I'm sceptical about doing a firmware update. At least at the moment it has loads of music on that I know I want. If I wiped it, then found I still couldn't transfer music, I'd basically have bricked it. I think for the moment I'm going to leave it for a bit and have a think. Thanks again for all suggestions - I remain absolutely open to bright ideas!

 

[classic33]

Drivers up to date?


From the first link given
. try the following: Go to Control-panel->device manager. Click on 'portable devices' and the zen should be listed. It may well have a warning sign on. Right click and click 'Update driver software'. Click 'Browse my computer for driver software'. Then click 'Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. There should be an option of 'mtp device' Click that and then click 'next'. That should reinstall the driver and your pc then pick up the zen device again.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Try checking your Windows Event List on the PC you're connecting the device to. It may contain more information on exactly what's going wrong. If you heard a connect/disconnect sound when plugging it in and unplugging it, it's quite likely the Event List will show something about this.

 

[swee'pea99]

Cracked it! Downloaded something called Nomad Explorer from the Creative site and plugged in and bingo. Kind of strange...it shows up in My Computer, but only as 'Nomad Explorer', with the device as a sub-folder, and when you right-click you get 'Open' or 'Explore' - no 'Properties', so no way to, eg, check for disk space used/free. But I'll settle for that. I can copy files to<->from, which is all that really matters. (The drivers were all up to date, BTW - and no exclamation marks. Reported

Just couldn't seem to recognise it as a disk.)

Anyway, thanks for all help - much appreciated.

 

[MontyVeda]

was gonna ask if you used to use a desktop client for it. My NetMD needs a bit of software for windows to recognise it.

 

[simonali]

Try Driver Booster by IOBit. Finds out of date stuff on yer pooter you never even knew it had!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Not everything was recognised as a disk back in the day. If you have had to go back to XP that is a very old operating system. Like 18 years old.

 

[classic33]

Not everything was recognised as a disk back in the day. If you have had to go back to XP that is a very old operating system. Like 18 years old.

17, yesterday.
It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001,and broadly released for retail sale on October 25, 2001.