Upgrade the Zen Micro: 5gb to 8gb on the cheap

Step 14 Charge the Micro, Format the Drive

After you insert the battery, the player automatically turns on into recovery mode. We'll be using two items in the recovery menu.

But first things first -- if your Zen Micro isn't running on a full charge, please connect it to your PC with the USB cable and let it charge completely. You must have a full charge when you flash the firmware onto the device. Meaning, the blue backlighting isn't pulsating any more when it's connected to the USB cable. Your PC will recognize the device when you connect it, but nothing will happen at this time, which is just fine. Let it charge.

While it's charging, go to the Creative support website for your country, and download the Zen Micro firmware (link goes to US English version, use the Support link above if you have a MicroPhoto and/or need a different localization/language). I personally don't use the version 2 firmware because I don't listen to Microsoft PlaysForSure-DRM'd music. So I obtained version 1.11.01 of the Zen Micro firmware.

UPDATE (thank you abssorb):
There is apparently a known issue (aka device-bricking problem) with Windows Media Player 11 and the Version 1 firmware upgrade for the Zen Micro.

Every user would have to decide for him- or herself if taking these steps to upgrade their player is a good idea. Neither of the firmware versions available for the Zen Micro have been updated since 2005, and the version 2 software update explicitly states in its instructions that version 10 of Windows Media Player is required.
Click here for some more information on rolling back WMP11 to WMP10 to support upgrading the firmware on the Zen Micro for version 1.xx firmware.

I don't use Windows Media Player at all, so I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you did brick your player following these instructions, you should be able to re-enter recovery mode on the device by removing the battery, holding the power switch to "on", and reinserting the battery. From there you can follow the instructions at the link above to prep your device for new firmware, or just reload the factory firmware burned intot he device's ROM with option 3 (see screenshot below).

PS. you should still be able to boot the player into recovery mode and reload the default firmware from the device's ROM. Take out the battery, hold the power switch all the way on, and reinsert the battery. I hope it works for you. I've used recovery mode myself with this device. The last time I did a firmware upgrade I bricked the player and recovery mode brought it back to life. Good luck.

Anyway: Once it's charged, select "Format All" from the recovery menu, and confirm that you want to format. After a few seconds the device will report the formatting complete and tell you how much free space the device has.

Then select "Reboot" from the menu. Your computer will make some noises as the device shuts down and starts up again into Recovery mode. Don't do anything more on the Micro at this time.

Yes, there's an option to "Reload Firmware," but we're not using it. We want newer firmware than what the factory installed in the recovery OS.

Comments

[axelamk]

My Creative Zen Micro takes forever while formating. i need some help with that.