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Posted on Jul 20, 2007 - 12:42am by John P. in Computing, Tutorials
Six months ago I published a guide to the complete disassembly of the Creative Zen Vision W personal media player. At the end of that post I theorized as to how one could upgrade the hard drive when larger ones came available.
Well now, thanks to the generosity of Aaron Vronko and RapidRepair.com for supplying a 100GB drive; and Dan, one of my loyal readers, for playing guinea pig using my previous post to repair his Zen, I now have the largest drive in any Zen W in the world – and the theory is now a reality!
Here is how it was done.
First of all, you need to order yourself a new hard drive. Clearly I would recommend ordering the exact one that I upgraded with from RapidRepair.com. It is the 100GB Toshiba MK1011GAH.
After you get your new drive, follow my instructions on the Creative Zen Vision W Teardown page. Once you get to the point where you are down to the bare hard drive follow these steps:
Remove the tape on the existing hard drive connector and, with a tiny flathead screwdriver, flip the white ZIF socket clip up and gently remove the ribbon cable.
After the new drive is inserted replace the red tape over the ribbon cable and Zif socket and re-assemble the Zen. You will have to trim back the rubber shock protector a little so it fits the shape of the new drive. See the attached image for an example.
The firmware installer will begin and after a minute or two when it completes you can disconnect the Zen and power it on. At this point it should boot up into the full interface except that the drive is completely empty.Once you’ve completed the upgrade you could, in theory, order this case to repurpose your old drive and use it as a USB external storage device. However, I have not tried this so I am not advocating it. Perhaps if they send me one to test out I’ll give an update later if it works.
Please let me know if anything is unclear or you have suggestions on how to improve this article.
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Can you put an 8mm thick harddrive in the vision 60gb slim?
Hello,
Today I replaced my Seagtae 60Gb harddrive – Zen Vision W 60gb slim version,
with the Toshiba 80gb MK8025GAL – 5mm tickness – works great no sanding, but take care with disable the wires will brake in a second.
Rgrds
Jerry form Holland
i had an hard disc problem and i bouth an new one hard disc it is …
but he said also that i got an hard disc problem so can it be the connector cable?
i didn’t do anything to it or should i had do something before i connecting it..
My Vision W quit. I replaced the drive with a 100G. The firmware will not complete the install. Any Ideas? Who can I send it to?
Mike
Can you put an 8mm thick harddrive in the vision 60gb slim?
It seems that i have a problem with my 60 gb harddrive for the creative zen cuz it sounds like its shattered on the inside and i read your article.. i just wanted to make sure that the link you put for the 10 gb harddrive was completely the right one before i make such an investment. Thank you.
is the 100 GB drive the largest that the Zen will support or can it support larger?
Warning!!! I just tried to fit the 100GB Toshiba MK1011GAH drive into my 30Gb Zen Vision W and it does NOT fit! The original Hitachi 30Gb drive uses a single platter and is only 5mm thick. The 100Gb Toshiba uses two platters and is 8mm thick. There is not enough room in the Zen W case to fit this thicker drive even when you completely remove the blue shock-absorbing rubber from around the drive – it’s still 1.4mm too thick. You cannot get the back cover on without seriously bowing the cover and consequently put a lot of pressure on the motherboard – something I’d never do.
In addition, all the 100Gb Toshiba drives seem to come with a LIF connector and not the ZIF type connector on the original Hitachi drive. I had to really force the ribbon cable into the LIF connector slot to get it in. I’m not sure if they’ve change the Toshiba MK1011GAH drive since this article was written but I can definitely say the 100GB Toshiba MK1011GAH drive I bought and tried to install in February 2009 does NOT work. If I had to do it all over again, I’d make sure whatever drive I chose had dimensions of 71mmx54mmx5mm (LxWxH) with a 40pin ZIF connector.
Greg,
I have no idea what went wrong in your install, but the case will indeed fit either the 5 or 8mm thick drive. It is the exact same case for either the 30 or 60gb versions. I show the photos, I’ve answered this question many times, and others have done it too. All I can suggest is that you trim the blue rubber gasket and put it back in. I assure you, it fit when I did it, and it’s been in the device now for well over a year and still going strong.
John
John,
Hello All,
I live in England and for some reason the Toshiba drive referred to is not carried by any vendors here. Is there another drive you could suggest ? My hard drive has failed, when I opened up my Zen VisionW, I found a Seagate Lyrion ST18.1 ST760211DE 60gb drive. This would be a good opportunity for me to increase the capacity of my drive…..so…..any suggestions ?
Many Thanks
Jay
may i have change to 80GB of other brand new hardisk ?
That’s what you get for accidentally hitting enter.
Anyway,
I was about to say, I wonder if there are 2 different case styles/sizes. I have an 8mm drive I just got in and it does not fit in the case without bowing the back. The drive that came out is a Seagate ST760211DE. A 5mm drive. Now I gotta see if I can send back the drive.
After some careful scrutiny of you posted pics (very nice detail, btw), it looks like there may be two different Vision W 60GB cases. In the pic, your AV port (off to the right) looks like it’s only about 1mm or so from the drive cushioning. On my unit, when the HD is in, there’s a good 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch between the drive and the backside of the AV port. Also, if I take my drive, put the blue cushioning on, and place it in the drive cover (the sheet metal casing that had to be removed), it clearly sticks us a 1mm or so out of the drive cover. This means that when you attempt to rebuild the unit, the drive cover screw holes, don’t fit back down on the sytem board of the unit to screw in.
So my next question is, does anyone know of a 5mm drive that they know works with the Zen Vision W (don’t care if it’s the same 60GB size I had or an upgrade, just want something that works).
I have two W’s and both have died on me if i buy a new drive for them can i get them up and running again?
zen-w was damaged of hardisk so that do you show me the way of using ZIP adaptor to converte to CF card slot in my Zen W 60G . what kinds of CF cards can support in the unit , for instance , 512M , 4G, 8G …..?
thanks
Harika bence thanks
Thanks you are brilliant!
thanks! really helpful. I had to change my harddrive, it was making this strange clicking sound when i turned it on. I just replaced it with another 30GB but soon I want to upgrade to 100GB. If only my Creative mediasource could recognize it now!!