How to Disassemble Your Creative Zen Sleek/Photo

[Macbirt56]

I have read all the replies, I think, but I haven't seen my problem listed.
My unit won't reset and it's stuck in recovery mode.
Do I need to disassemble it or is there a way around that?
Thanks

[BobbyRS]

When a hard drive based Zen usually boots into Recovery Mode every time, most of the time it is because of it having issues with the hard drive or with detecting it. Maybe a loose connector, bad hard drive, corrupt filesystem/format. What happens if you do a Cleanup from the menu?

[dano]

I noticed you say you have parts for the Zen Sleek Photo, I am looking for a headphone jack, mine is damaged. If you know where I could find one, please share.

Thanks

[BobbyRS]

I noticed you say you have parts for the Zen Sleek Photo

I did? I'm sorry for the confusion. I don't have any parts for the ZSP.

If you know where I could find one, please share.

EBay

[zenlover10]

I took apart my Zen Sleek Photo, and the hard drive connector is different from the Zen Sleek shown here. It has a tape connector connected with a tiny locking plastic flap. After playing with it for awhile, I figured it out. My HDD had come disconnected and it was locked in recovery mode. I would have been stuck without all the helpful advice here. Thanks so much!!! I've had it for almost 3 years, and I still love it!!

EDIT: In case anyone has the same problem, I will describe the symptoms. I turned it on and it was stuck in the recovery mode screen. When I tried to choose one of the restore options, it either wouldn't do anything, or it would start to run and then the screen would disintegrate into white and black fuzz, followed by a partial illumination of the old screen recovery screen about the size of a rectangle with the battery charge indicator underlined in red. The computer would still recognize it as a Zen Sleek Photo in recovery mode. When I tried to reload the firmware (after rolling back to Media Player 10), it would run most of the way, but would hang up near the end, eventually giving the message that the firmware upgrade failed! I'm not sure which end of the ribbon cable to the Hdd was disconnected because I fixed both ends. When I powered it back up, there was my song on the screen, just where I'd left off and everything was still loaded and ready to go. I had already taken it apart a couple of times with no result, so I'm sure it was reattaching the cable ends that fixed it and not something else.

Sorry, I didn't have time to write all of that earlier. Had to go to a soccer game!

[BobbyRS]

Good to hear Zenlover10! Welcome aboard! Happy to hear you found us usefull. Enjoy.

[mpodie]

I just took apart my Zen Sleek Photo and it was a nightmare... just shy of disastrous. So I thought I'd share photos and some warnings here in case people with the same version as mine need to take theirs apart.

Prying the plastic panel on the bottom off was a little more difficult than anticipated - it was held in place with some adhesive. Not too problematic, came off OK.

The metal plate below it was much more difficult - as you can see in the picture, it had a good amount of adhesive. It got bent slightly, but no real problems.



The keypad was the real nightmare. Even having looked at the pictures, I didn't quite realize what or how much I was supposed to be pulling out. The keypad is a thin plastic layer attached to a small circuit board with a very thin metal protective plate on the back. All three layers need to be extracted as a single piece. From the original poster's picture, it looks like this wasn't too much of a hassle. On mine, as you can see in the picture, there was a large piece of strongly adhesive double-sided tape. The keypad was bent and deformed by the force of me pulling at it while the tape kept it firmly attached to the larger internal circuit board.



The picture above has blue circles on the little plastic tabs on the side that you might think are important - they aren't. They don't prevent you from lifting the keypad out - they only keep the keypad/board/plate assembly together. In the picture, I am holding the keypad upside down, so the bottom edge in the picture is actually the top edge of the keypad and it fits into the case with that edge aligned just below the screen. There are two big metal tabs that I put red circles around (one is obscured by the red tape), and they hold the pad in place pretty securely. You want to free the bottom tabs first, then swing the pad up & out from the bottom and pull it free.

I couldn't really figure out how to get any of the tabs free and ended up mangling the case a bit:



This picture also shows some of the adhesive that keeps the keypad stuck in place.

I guess the best advice I can give for safe keypad removal is:

1. Carefully run a small screwdriver or knife along the bottom edge of the keypad to free it from the adhesive keeping it stuck to the case.
2. Use a small screwdriver to free the metal tabs on the bottom edge of the keypad from the case.
3. Starting from the bottom, carefully pry the keypad up and out, if possible wedging something in to break the bond of the tape. Careful here, as you don't want to damage the circuit board.
4. Once you have the keypad freed from the bottom tabs and tape, swing it up and pull it out.

Finally, after I got the bottom panel and the keypad off, the rest just slid out the bottom gentle and easy.

The hard drive was glued to some foam, so removing it ripped up the foam a bit:

[tafsen]

Does anyone know where I can buy a new hdd and a battery for my Creative Zen Sleek? On ebay I only find handlers that delivers to the state, and I live in Europe =\

[constantine]

hay i bent the prongs in the carging import and its not charging or doing any thang of corse but is thier a way to repace it or is their a way to take the music off without useing the port becuse i acctually have ALOT of music on thier thats not on my computer so can u help ... ?

[Sondan]

Ok I found and purchased my replacement battery online and attempted two or three times to take my Zen Sleek Photo apart, but would chicken out whenever I would see the plastic sort of bend for fear of permanently damaging the player.


Any suggestions on where I could take the new battery and player to have a person do this that knew what they were doing and would do it cheaply?

I hate to have to trash the player and be stuck with the brand new battery.

Thanks for reading.

[coachop94]

Originally Posted by Sondan

Ok I found and purchased my replacement battery online and attempted two or three times to take my Zen Sleek Photo apart, but would chicken out whenever I would see the plastic sort of bend for fear of permanently damaging the player.


Any suggestions on where I could take the new battery and player to have a person do this that knew what they were doing and would do it cheaply?

I hate to have to trash the player and be stuck with the brand new battery.

Thanks for reading.

This Ebay seller repairs many Creative players (sleek included) http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Vision-M-Zen-Lab-MX-X-Fi-repair-services-/160475131268?pt=Other_MP3_Players&hash=item255d102 d84

[Sondan]

Originally Posted by coachop94

This Ebay seller repairs many Creative players (sleek included) http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Vision-M-Zen-Lab-MX-X-Fi-repair-services-/160475131268?pt=Other_MP3_Players&hash=item255d102 d84

Thanks for the link but it wouldn't work. I will check Ebay when I get home from work.

Have you used these people? I am sorta leery of Ebay. Was hoping there was some type of store that I could walk into for repair.

Does Best Buy do this type of repair if the item wasn't purchased there?

Thanks again for reading.

[coachop94]

Best Buy does not fix them.You could try a local computer repair shop if you don't want to send it away for repair. The Ebay seller has very good feedback. I have not used him (yet) I plan to though. I've reposted the link. http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Vision-...item2309fd4b7f

[ShadowRider]

replaced battery using ur post