musings, mutterings, and creative muddle. . .





Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Day the Zune Went Away

My MP3 player is being obstinate.   On vacation.  Kapoot.  Adios.  Doesn't work.  Died.  Yes.  I'm facing the reality of it all.  My Zune has bit the last megabyte.

Now what???

I've had my beloved pink 30gb Zune since Christmas 2007.  She's walked with me, slept with me, traveled with me, partied with me.  I've listened to music, shared photos, enjoyed podcasts, played games.  I've always kept her up to date, synced, and charged.  After all that we've been through. . . Error #5 - Contact Support.

NO!  Don't do this!  Come back little pink Zune - come back to me!!!  Turn on just one last time, please?!?!

Off to the Zune troubleshooting website.  Like an obedient little tech-y slave, I follow the directions to the letter (and number) as far as my pretty in pink Zune allows.

1. Press and hold the Back button while you press and hold the top of the Zune Pad. When the Zune device begins to power up, release the buttons.

2.  Immediately press and hold the Back button while you press both the left side of the Zune pad and the center of the Zune pad. Continue to hold these buttons until you lose all sensation in not only your fingers and hand - but all the way up to your shoulder and neck and your Zune device restarts.  "Please wait" appears on the screen.


3.  Cross your fingers and forget about your Zune for the next 24 hours.  Come back and see if anything happened.

4.  Eventually, "Clearing contents. Please wait" appears.

5.  Reload your Zune when “Connect Zune to your PC." displays.

I've been stuck on #4 since Monday morning.  How long can it take, you ask?  Good question, I respond.

Sure, I can send it to Microsoft for them to check it out see what needs to be repaired. . . then either pay for the repair (if one is possible) or pay for return shipping (which is twice as much as initial shipping) to get the broken unit returned to me.  How long could *that* take?  How many podcasts would I miss???

The easiest, and most tempting, solution, of course, is to say 'forget about it' and buy a new Zune HD.  VERY tempting. . . . I mean - I've been dreaming about the new Zune since its release was announced.  I have been coveting one since I first saw them. . . . but to purchase one cuts into my shoe budget and I'm just not sure I'm up for that right now.

What to do?  What to do?

In the meantime, here it lays on my desk, next to my computer, plugged into life support with Screen #4 telling me to Please Wait.  For how long?  For what?

I'm not liking my Zune-free life.  Not one little kilobyte.

Have a Zune-filled kind of day ~

Robin Z

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