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  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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

  6. I’m thinking the slim SSD Special with the ZIF connector would be good, but if I understand correctly, there are actually 2 different ZIF connectors out there, so it may still need a ZIF to ZIF adapter.

    The 1.8″ model should work, too, since it is only 5 mm thick and would work in the 30 GB or 60 GB slim models. But you’d need the PATA model and a connector adapter for that as well.

    However, unless you can find an OEM vendor, it doesn’t look like Samsung is selling to us lowly people on the street.

  7. I bought one just to see if it was possible to do the 120gb upgrade and it was =D

    Wewt!!! I now have 114422mb of absolute beauty and man it was a pain to crack mine open they screwed one of the screws in wrong so it wouldnt unscrew took me 15 minutes to get it open =/ and getting that zif connector to fit was a real pain in the ass =/

    But it works and thats what matters =D

    Major props man =D

    And BTW you look just like this guy I used to work with when I worked for the Mesquite School District outside of Dallas its scary how much you look like this other guy…

    Thanks again =D

  8. Hey John —

    Did you run into any problems being that the ZVM’s OEM drive (I don’t have the model# handy) being 5mm high, and the Toshiba MK1011GAH being 8mm high?

    I did notice that RapidRepair mentions if you were to use the Toshiba MK1011GAH for upgrading an iPud, you would need a larger backing.

    Also, is it really necessary to upgrade the ZVM’s firmware prior to the drive upgrade? I would like to keep the OEM’s original fw — I like the Record FM feature a lot!

    Thx

  9. Hi this is kinda weird !! my little brother sticked a Nokia charger inside the headset port (since he assumed that it fits there :\) so i had 2 ICs burned inside !! right behind the port (yellow colored) so i had them changed i started my zen !! it worked very well ! i entered the recovery mode (by using the battery thing) formated the hard drive and it formated verywell then erased the old firmware and connected the zen to my pc the upgraded the firmware and the zen rebooted after finish !! but the peoblem is i see the “Creative” logo and the “ZEN” logo when it start my zen but then i see NOTHING only a black screen

    what do you think the problem is ?!

  10. Here’s my question, Would this work in converting the Vision W to a Solid State Drive? That would be, in my opinion, the ultimate conversion…

  11. I have just replaced the 30gb Hitachi drive in my Vision M with a 30gb from my Vison W and so can attest that they are indeed the same. The model numbers are identical. I have to believe that the upgrade would therefore work on either. Now, to find a larger drive for my “W” :)

  12. Toshiba now do a 120gb drive, the MK1214GAH, which will fit. Now mine is the biggest on the planet, Mwah hah hah haaaaa!

  13. Hello Guys

    Anyone interested in selling you old drive you replaced?

    Many thanks

    Mark

  14. It looks like the same size but I’m not sure about the connector. I’m not sure the CEATA is the same as the ATA-7. That would really make for one nice little player

  15. It looks like the same size but I’m not sure about the connector. I’m not sure the CEATA is the same as the ATA-7. That would really make for one nice little player!

    Dan

  16. I am also interested in doing this with the “Creative Zen Vision”.

    Also, I assume 8 months after the blog was posted, an even bigger drive can be used now?

  17. Great tutorial John P!!!

    Just 2 Questions:

    1. Will this hard drive work with a “Creative Zen Vision” (not Zen vision W); and if not, then what hard drive does it use?

    Also..

    2. What type of hard drive does a “Zen V Plus” use; and is this device too small for you to crack open and examine?

  18. Is the disk in the Vision the same as the disk in the vision:W. I would love to upgrade my Vision! Thanks.

  19. Since your’s is already opened up, why don’t you post a close up of your completed assembly? If I can’t see what you are doing wrong, I’ll open mine and post it.

  20. I tried and still can’t get the Zen to recognize the hard drive. Does anyone have a picture of the connection between the ribbon and the new hard drive? I can’t get the ribbon in any further but at this point I’m not sure if it’s the connection or the hard drive at this point.

  21. Any non conductive lube which doesn’t degrade plastic. a tiny bit of vegetable oil or WD40 comes to mind. The absolute best is silicone grease.

  22. You really need to ram it in there preferably using a little lube. <– What do you use to “lube” it?

  23. The ribbon is thicker than it should be for the new drive. You really need to ram it in there preferably using a little lube. Also, make sure the ribbon clamp is unlocked on the drive. It’s a black piece which either snaps upwards or slides out a little to unlock.

  24. Can someone help? I bought the drive but I can’t get the ribbon to go into the zif connector on the new drive. What am I doing wrong?

  25. No it didn’t worked with windows media player 11 also . it is still looking for driver for ZEN vision w

  26. try updating to windows media player 11, you dont need to install the drivers or any drivers for the Zen, works in xo may work in 2000

  27. U guys r too smart, it’s been 3 days i got zen W, & i m not able tin install it on windows 2000, tried almost all zip /dll posted in net.
    tried the Zen-Driver-W2K_and_98.zip and tried 5410MTP.zip.

    No good, none of them works , still my 2000 is aksing for driver for Creatvie zen vision W.

    Boy all of u r using XP ? any easy or hard way to install it on windows 2000 ? Boy it’s been bumpy ride , and i hope it will end soon with yr help.

  28. I have just tried it and failed. I had the thicker 60GB Zen W before. My kids cracked the screen so I sent it back to Creative for repair. They replaced it with the 60GB ZEN W NEW EDITION. I think the New EDition is slimmer because it now fit loosely in the cover I got for the old one. When I put the 100GB Toshiba in, it’s too think and I can’t screw the unit back together. So either you have the older version of the 60GB Zen or they come up with a thinner 100GB zif hard drive. This wouldn’t work. The cool thing is I did purchase that Digital Intelligence 1.8″ Zif enclosure so I have this credit card size 100GB external drive now. Looks bitching!!! Still wanted to thank John P. for showing how to do all that with the ZEN W though =)

  29. It’s not possible to get one that big inside the case. The drive in the Zen is a 1.8 inch, the largest you can get in that size is the 100Gb.

    D

  30. Hi.
    I got the 60Gb Zen and I would like to know if it is possible to replace the HD with a 250Gb or 300Gb.
    Nowadays they are quite cheaper.
    Regards.

  31. with the Zen 30 Gig where the Zif cable pushes into the drive there is a white bar put your finger nail under the top edge and pull with very little effort this should lift up and the Zif cable will pull out without any effort.

  32. Sorry, I just opend my Zen Vision W, but I don’t know how to disconnect the ZIF connector. Do you only have to pull out the brown cable?? I don’t want to pull to hard and break the player … :-|

    Thx for help!

  33. Would be nice mind you if anyones worried about disk damage then 64g Solid States are out, we bit expensive tho.

  34. Hehehe… thanks for that update FrankenPC! Yes, it was a pain in the ass to get the ribbon in there, but I’m like you… once you see how much space you’ve got it makes it all worthwhile! :-)

    Take care,

    John P.

  35. Update. Might want to use an electrically non-conductive lubricant like WD-40 on the ribbon before ramming it into place. Cheers hackers!

  36. A few bits. I successfully did this upgrade. Here are my notes:

    #1 Throw away the EMI shield over the old 30GB HDD. The new 100GB drive will not fit without causing some serious damage to the whole unit. Damage most importantly to the LCD itself from the pressure driving itself into the mainboard.
    #2 get some thin latex and put it under the new 100GB drive. That’s as good as it gets. Try not to drop the unit from now on. Or buy a beefy leather protector.
    #3 That FREAKING ZIF(my ass) connector. Here is the ultimate deal. The new Toshiba’s use a high pressure ZIF socket. They have a black plastic lever in back. You are SUPPOSED to use a zif ribbon without any plastic backing to fit those. Once in place the black lever is snapped back wards and that sucker aint going nowhere. That is not the case. Hitachi used the plastic backed zif ribbon. So you have to manhandle the ribbin into position and flip back the black lock. You only need to ram it in a few millimeters to be effective.

    I can only guess at the mechanical stress of that Toshiba ZIF socket. I actually tested the removal of the extra plastic layer to no avail. I ruined a ZIF Ribbin in the process.

    Here is another clue: On EBAY they sell 1.8 ZIF enclosures which are BOTH Hitachi and Toshiba compliant, I.E. They have both types of ZIF ribbons.

    I hope that helped. So, yeah, RAM THAT MUTHA into the tight Toshiba ZIF connector and it WILL work. But realize you are sacrificing a LOT of vibration damping to get the whole assembly rebuilt. So far it’s working great on mine. 94 GB usable. That’s a hell of a lot of space!!!!

  37. hi, other than trying to upgrade the hard drive, does anyone have any idea what can be done such that the ZEN W plays RMVB (real player) files? similarly, to also play MOV (QuickTime) files. thanks a lot. excellent article.

  38. I upgraded my 30 gig W to a Toshiba MK8009GAH 80gig drive using the same technic with a slight adjustment to the HD, I didnt use the shock protector or the metal cover plate, also on the base of Toshiba MK series drives is a metal cover that covers the curcuit board which I also removed it only clips on so is easy to remove. I did place the rubber shock protector around the edges. Zif connectors can be a pain the Zen’s zif cable is slightly thicker than usual but by lifting the Black flap and a small amount of elbow grease the cable does fit, infact I removed the black flap off this drive. ZiF :) (Zero Insertion Force) yeah right….

  39. I just bought 100GB Toshiba MK1011GAH drive and replaced the original Zen Vision W Hitachi C4K60 Slim drive :)
    In the Zen Vision W 30GB ver. there is just not enough room to insert the 8mm drive, since C4K60 is 5mm height, and MK1011GAH is 8mm high.
    I did it but without rubber shock protector (needs to be cut a bit to fit the new drive).
    And i didn’t place the original metal drive cover.
    If i would done any of those things in my Zen Vision W, i just couldnt be able to tighten the 6 screws underneath the battery. Metal cover is also owmost impossible to fit the 8mm hard disk under with, or without the rubber shock protector. So i didn’t put inside drice cover and shock protector to be able to lock properly my Zen Vision W. The Zen Vision W ZIF tape is hard to fit in to the new drice but is 100% possible, i did it without any big problems, i just had to use some force :)

    Now my Zen Vision W looks the same as before, but it contains 100GB hard drive and im very pleased of my work, so i wish u luck if u wanna do this by yourself :)

  40. Todd,

    When I replaced my hard drive the ZIF cable was a little tough to fit in. It was a tight fit but went in with a little force. Just be sure to have it aligned and that it goes in straight.

    My 80GB drive is already full of movies and tv shows. I should have gone with the 100GB and may well swap over one of these days.Dan

  41. Thanks for getting back so quick! Sounds like luck of the draw. Sound like I need to be a little more forceful. Once I get the nerve up, I’ll try again and give an update. Defeat does not sit lightly on these shoulders…

  42. I bought the Toshiba MK8009GAH 80 gig. The Hitachi that comes stock has an easy latch to open the zif (zero input force)connector. The Toshiba has what they call a LIF connector. It has a black lever on the back that locks the cable in place but doesn’t open up like a zif. To make matters worse, it seems the cable is thicker than most zif cables making it very difficult to insert. I read reports of one person shaving down the ribbon cable and using pliers to force the cable in. I have tried to upgrade it twice now and gave up both times. Did you run into this problem on the 100 gig drive? Did you remove the ribbon cable connector from the Zen W to work on it? Per your instructions, it looks like you slid it in carefully and had a beer. I’m all for the beer but have no reason to celebrate yet…

  43. Todd,

    Now that you mention it, I do remember it was a little difficult to get the ribbon cable into the new drive. But I just shoved it in there! :-)

    I didn’t know they weren’t exactly the same, I guess because I’ve never used any ZIF connected hard drives before. So, sorry you are having difficulty with that upgrade, but in my case I just forced it in.

    John

  44. Yes, i saw similar questions like i did. Just wanted to know if 8m mdrive will surely work in my “W”.
    Too bad u don’t know if ZIF socketed drive should work in Zen Vision, maybe someone will read it and maybe will know the answer :)

    Thanks for quick reply and advice.
    Keep it real :D

    Mephisto77

  45. Mephisto,

    If you look at the previous comments you’ll see I answered this question several times already. Yes, you can use the 8mm drives in any Zen W.

    The drive must be Zif socketed or it won’t work. And I have no experience with any other Creative device than the Zen Vision W.

    John

  46. Hello.

    I read these 2 articles, and i have the same problem.

    I had Creative Zen Vision 30GB but he fell from like 1m on the ground, and it isn’t working.
    I bought Creative Zen Vision W 30GB ver, and i tried to plug that Hitachi (HTC 426030 G5CE00) C4K60 Slim drive of my Zen Vision W’s to my broken Zen Vision, and it isn’t Working aswell. I don’t know if it is because of the other drive (Zen Vision is Toshiba MK3006GAL) because it isn’t a ZIF socketed.
    My question is: If my Zen Vision W original C4K60 30GB drive should work in my Zen Vision? Or it’s a matter of disk class types?

    And other problem i wanna change my earlier mentioned C4K60 30GB drive in my Crerative Zen Vision W 30GB, but the drive has one disk and its 5mm, and 100GB MK1011GAH has 2 disks, that is 8mm.

    I’m just wondering if that 8mm disk will fit to my Zen Vision W 30GB, is there enough room for the 8mm disk?
    The MK1011GAH is very expensive, and i wolud ask if this is possible, rather then buy it and see it by myself :)

    Thanks for any reply :)

  47. Kahonen,

    The Zen I upgraded was a 60GB device, but it won’t matter. Yes, you’ll have to trim the rubber shock protector a bit, but I also had to do that with the 60GB version. The drives are all slightly different shapes. In a worst case scenario you could improvise a new shock protector or just leave it off…

    Good luck with the upgrade, and let us all know how it goes.

    John P

  48. Hey. Many thanks for this, I’m very impressed.

    I originally bought a 30Gb version and quickly realised my mistake but I’m now about to order the 100Gb drive linked in your article.

    A couple of questions before I do: the original poster of the query (on the tear-down page) said that his was a 30Gb version but you didn’t say which version the one you actually did the upgrade on was. If it was the 30Gb version, how did you cope with the fact the original drive was 5mm deep but the 100Gb one is 8mm deep? Is this where the bit about “trimming back the rubber shock protector a little” comes in?

    Many thanks.

  49. I’m currently having a zen vision w 30GB, and I’m considering upgrading to 160GB.
    Have anyone try it?

  50. can this be done with creative zen vision m?? Unfortunately while buying vision m i didn’t realize to look for a zen vision w…

  51. Hi. I was wondering if you can do this with the thicker 60gb zen vision w. Since it is thicker it should have plenty of room for the 100gb hard drive. You said even the bigger drive will fit in the 30gb version so it shouldn’t be a problem for the 60gb right?

  52. I was wondering if this mod will work on a Creative Zen Vision, but the normal model, not widescreen? Does it have enough room inside for a 8mm drive?

  53. For all those that are wondering, the device will accomodate either size drive. As I stated in the Teardown page, there is room for the larger drive in the unit even when they only put the smaller on in there.

    John

  54. I’m also wondering if w 30gb version can be upgraded with a 100 gb hard drive. It appeared that a 100 gb drive is 3 mm thicker than a 30 gb drive. Buy.com has w 30gb version for $210 after mail-in rebate now. So, if a 100 gb drive costs about $200, I could make a 100 gb zen vision w for about $410 which is not bad at all.

  55. now did you start off with a zen vision w 30gb or 60gb…because the 30gb is smaller than the 60 gb…well thats how it was with the initial releases…they just recently slimmed the 60gb down to the size of the original 30gb

  56. Soxbrother,

    I don’t know of any place that would have pictures of disassembly. For my Zen Xtra I just opened it up and started in. For the Vision W we were all lucky enough that John opened his first. My only advice would be go slow and don’t force anything. Good luck.

    D

  57. Ok, thanks.

    I’ll try it, if it works, I’ll let you know.

    Do you perhaps know a link with detailed pictures for how to disassemble a zen touch and of the harddrive connection, … ?

  58. Soxbrother,

    I do believe it is possible to upgrade. It’s going to be a bit expensive but ya, you should be able to. If you really like your Zen Touch then it’s also well worth it. Mostly it’ll depend on how thick your drive is and how much room there is inside your Zen.

    Dan

  59. Hello,

    I have read this somewhere that the Zen Touch uses 1.8-inch hard drives. Is it still possible to put a larger drive in you think ?

    Greetings,

    Soxbrother

  60. Soxbrother,

    It looks like you should be able to upgrade to anything up to a 120GB drive if you want. I suspect it’s a 2.5 inch form factor drive, in that case you can get about anysize you want for a decent pricce. The only real way to tell is to open it up and take a look but I’d say yes. Creative doesn’t appear to support the Touch any longer.

    Dan

  61. Hello,

    I have a Creative Zen Touch ( 20GB ), is it possible to upgrade this to a larger Hard Drive ?

    Greetings,
    Soxbrother

  62. John,

    The case arrived today. It’s a really nice metal case that snaps together. I think it’s well made and looks good and was easy to put together. Only slightly larger than a buisness card. It’s a bit on the spendy side but hey, it works. I had to use My Computer, Manage, Disk Management, Format to get my comp. to see the disk but it works great. It uses the mini-USB plug. The folks at Digital Intelligence were easy to work with too.

    I formatted it with 2 partitions and encrypted one of them with no problems.

    Dan

  63. bezerker,

    I also have the Zen Jukebox Xtra (40GB) and changed it out to a 100GB drive. It’s actually fairly easy. I used a Fujitsu Model MHV2100AT. Just pop the front cover off, remove the battery and take out the 4 screws. They’re the only ones there so you don’t have to worry about getting the right ones. Flip the unit over and take out the 2 VERY small screws at the bottom and remove the cover. The drive should be easy to get out at this point, just GENTLY pry out the top and be careful not to bend the connector. Install the new drive and put all the screws back in. The side cover on the control wheel may fall out but it’s easy to just drop back in. You need to format the new disk when you power up and reload the OS, you can get it from Creative. Most drives have 6 screws holding them together, do not remove them as you take a chance of destroying the drive if you do.

    Good luck,

    Dan

  64. Hi i’ve got this Zen Xtra(no vision) with a broken hd i’d like to put a new one do you know how i can do or someone who did it before?
    thank you

  65. I’ve put around 30-35GB of data on the device, but not more than that. So as a result I can’t say that I’ve tested it at it’s max capacity. But having said that, operationally I can’t tell any difference whatsoever. It works exactly the same as before. It just has more room.

    From a battery standpoint I spent all afternoon testing it to see if there was any noticable change there. I watched two full length movies from the device while having it connected to the TV and this only ran the battery down to about 50%. After that, I left it playing another full length movie, but this time unconnected and at the end of that the batter was down to about the 33% mark.

    The bottom line is that I was able to watch 3 movies back to back for a combined time of 6 hours and still had some battery left at the end, so I’m going to say that there seems to be no difference from a power consumption standpoint.

  66. Im hanging out for something bigger – maybe when these drives reach 160GB I shall upgrade my Zen

  67. I’d be interested in a follow-up about battery life and any operational hiccups you see. Have you tried loading more than 30 gigs of files onto the player? If so, how much, and have you had any problems?

  68. What about clone the disk with norton ghost?, maybe using the track by track method works.

  69. I have the case from Digital Intelligence on order and will be glad to report on how it works as soon as I get it all set up.

    The 100GB drive from RapidRepair is $280. I found them at Mini-Drives.net for $215.

    Dan

  70. it could possibly fit with some finagling, into a zen vision m. it would easily fit in the 60gb version. the 30gb version has a 5mm thick hard drive and this one is 7 or 8 mm thick, so you would have to find some way to make up that extra few mm.

  71. Would this work on the regular Zen Vision (non widescreen)? I assume it would, but would the hard drive fit?

  72. Yikes Kenny. That’s a good question. I’m guessing it would cost as much to get a new screen as to buy a new one, but you’d have to talk to Creative about that. Sorry.

    John

  73. I want to know is there any way to buy the screen of it..
    I smashed mine’s thanks

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