Creative Zen frozen and Reset has not worked

Try this if your Zen will not turn on

hold the pause/play button down

while holding the pause/play, first use a paperclip to press the reset button and then slide the power thing down for a few seconds like you are turning it on.

release the pause/play button.

you may need to connect it to usb for it to turn on. worked like a charm for me when everything else failed. hope it helps!!!

Carbine15, I just had the exact same problem with my Zen today. I tried everything but then came to realize something: even if the power is switched OFF, the reset function restores the player to it's exact same place had it been just turned on. So, in effect, it should turn the player on if reset is hit. I just did this and presto! player is back to normal, it is powered on, screen works and computer recognized it instantly when plugged in while powered on. I hope this helps you! When Player is frozen, screen is black and blue light is on, you can power off your Zen as follows: You want the hold button at the top of the player in the ORANGE position, this will lock your keys. Hold the power button down for 2 or 3 seconds, the keypad will flash blue and then all buttons will be deactivated. Take a very fine paperclip, piece of fusewire, sewing neele (be careful of causing damage witht he needle, though) and underneath the player, right next to the cable connector is a tiny hole, put the pin or whatever you're using in there and push in slowly as to not damage the player. This should remedy any freezing problems and power on your Zen. If your player's screen has now lit up, plug it in and charge it fully. After a few hours, your zen should be ready to use.

Hey,

I just tried Rainmaker's solution on my Creative ZEN 8GB.
It worked fine!
After releasing the Play/Pause button you'll find yourself in a menu where you can 'cleanup', 'format all', 'reset firmfware' and 'reboot'. In my case it helped to 'cleanup', wait until the progress had finished and then 'reboot'. After that it came back to live again! Maybe it's only working on this type of ZEN. Thanks to Rainmaker, you saved my ZEN from being chucked away :)

I thought I am alone :). Oh you are here. I am also having the same problem and looking for the soultion. My Creative Zen player was working well for quite sometime. It stopped switching on suddenly, When I was transfering the mp3 songs to player ...suring transfer my Explorer just hanged ..I thought removing USB connection and put it back will solve the problem. But I am not able to swicth on my mp3 player ... and my pc is not detecting my player. I tried to reset ..that also doesn't work. Pls inform me if you got a solution.

Sometimes when I disconnect it from my computer [I do admit, I don't bother with Safely Remove Hardrive thing] sometimes my Creative Zen freezes. The screen is black [though in the dark, it is on ever so slightly.] and the power button thing on the side is still blue. I can't reset it or anything.
But I find that I just wait for the battery to die, plug it into my computer, and hey presto!
:]

Hi,
I had the same problem with my Creative zen and I only purchased it one month ago. I thought I had lost it forever when I went to switch it off and it froze with a white screen and refused to turn off, on, play or anything!! Started to panic and was going to return it to the shop when I thought I'd better look at the instructions (very unhelpful), I put the problem into google and it referred me to this site and the official Creative site. Checked the Creative site and it was mega unhelpful as everything that they suggested did not help. Last ditch effort made me get onto this site and the 1st (Best solution) from The Rainmaker helped a treat. If you have the same problem as me, please follow the Rainmakers advice. Thanks dude - you saved me!!

Same thing happened to me. NO response from keypad. Blue light stays on till the battery dies. Battery won't charge up. No sound. No screen. Reset button only turns off the blue light while it's pressed nothing else. Reset while pressing play/pause or any combination of keys and releasing the reset while keeping the button pressed does nothing. I just gave this as a gift three weeks ago and this happened. i bought it from Creative on the 17th of last month so they better make good. Oh, if anyone needs a battery change use eBay for the battery. Don't remove the screen or the keypad. There's no need. Pop the plastic, Unscrew the metal plate. remove the metal plate. unplug battery. remove battery (slides right out). Insert new battery. Plug in, screw on and snap back the white plate. TaDa... I'll do it for you if you like google search my username on myspace or candlepowerforums.

My zen player is not turning on, when I plug in usb after five minutes it shows Re-building library and nothing comes on. Re-building .....and dont working. clean up formmat all. relaod firmware .reboot

I had the same problem, checked all forums and creative site but nothing worked. I just kept trying to reset the stupid thing, pushing al the buttons and probably destroying the reset button but all of a sudden... he was born again!!

This has just happened to my Zen - the freezing with 'Creative' on screen. I tried the reset with the paperclip and that didn't fix it. My computer won't recognise that its attached, so I looked up the Creative site and it said I need to try getting to the 'Clean Up' page and then had several Creative products listed, none of which were the Zen. I don't know what to do now, obviously its not ideal if I lose my music but its no good to me like this either!!!!
Tash

I have a zen too, I guess I'm returning it to the store tomorrow

My Zen Neeon's frozen/overheated/locked many times (and I HAVEN'T dropped it!) and is now more or less totally dead. It seems to be a not-uncommon flaw. If you want to get material on the device off, but it can't be recognised by your PC, you might be able to save it. If the device will still play music (which mine will, sometimes) you can run a lead from the headphone socket to the line in of your PC. Don't connect the USB cable. Then press play on the device, and record the audio into your PC using some software like Audacity. Sadly, it won't retrieve any data files you might have on there :'( From now on, I'm backing up ALL my songs on CD, buying a really cheap little MP3 player and copying songs over as I want to hear them, treating it as a disposable short-lived toy.

Oh my God - it's just happened to me. I went to download the updated firmware and now I'm stuck in recovery mode. I've only had it for 2 days! I've tried everything listed on the forums and nothing works. Can't believe I changed my Sony NW-S706 for this - and trust me, Sony's Sonicstage is atrocious, the forums all confirm that - but now seems as if I've been 'lucky' enough to find a new winner. I tried reset, I changed 'permissions' in the registry as advised by Creative, I tried it on a different computer but still nothing. Really teed off

I've had the zen for about 3 years now and never had a problem....but today I went to put more music on it and my computer popped up with a little link saying device failed, unplug. I did, I fiddled with it, and tried to turn it off replug it, but it stayed frozen. Then i took the screen and keypad and nothing looked loose so i put them back on. But when i did that the screen went black and won't come back on. The only thing that's on is the blue light on the keypad....nothing is working, not the reset or the buttons. what do i do?

Nah, my creative zen was acting fritzy after I uploaded some new songs into it (guessed they were corrupt, cuz it happened b4), when I deleted them, it didn't work, so I tried for an hour or so trying to get it to work and I somehow got to the recovery page and tried a clean-up and then it fritzed again and shut itself off and now it won't turn back on for ANYTHING 3=

Ive tried all these solutions and my zen wont work worth **** and now i dont know if it will work ever again.......PLZ HELP

My PC did not recognised my CREATIVE ZEN 20G when connected thru USB cable.
Prior to connection to PC, the unit ZEN functions properly. Freeze/Overhang is encountered (i.e. all of the touch function buttons did not worked) if it is connected to PC thru USB cable.

My Zen was frozen on a black screen w/ no functionality at all, even to turn it off.

When the batter had fully drained, Plugged it into the USB port on my computer to start recharging it. I slid the power button into the "lock" position. Then, while holding down the play/pause button, I inserted a paper clip into the "reset" hole