Return of the Zune

Well, last night Microsoft released it’s analysis of the bug that brought 30GB Zune’s to a standstill. The bug, as it turns out, is in a third party clock driver for the Zune. The solution — don’t turn your 30GB Zune on the last day of a leap year (yes, this bug will come back in 4 years if we don’t fix it — which we will but it may take some time). If you have turned on your Zune and it’s locked up then let the battery drain completely before recharging it in the morning. There’s more information on the FAQ over at the zune.net site

I woke up this morning, plugged the 30GB Zune in to the AC charger in the wall to recharge, went and took a shower and by the time I was ready to take the dog for a walk this morning it had recharged and booted up fully. So, I was able to enjoy the morning walk with the dog while listening to NPR. Sweet.

Another Zune Bites the Dust!

Well this morning started on a sour note…I put the leash on the dog, picked up the pooper scooper and grabbed a travel mug of coffee. I was all ready to head out the door to take the dog for his morning walk. I picked up my 30GB Zune (Microsoft now calls it the Zune 30 but for me it’s always the original Zune). I pressed the on right button to turn it on, watched the Zune start booting and put it in my jacket pocket. About halfway up the street I decided to listen to NPR while walking the dog. I took the Zune out of my pocket and looked at it. It was still stuck on the boot screen with the progress bar almost all the way to the right. Another Zune bites the dust…or did it?

When I returned home I just left it alone and let it drain the battery. I figured that since we (yes, I work for Microsoft — although not in the Zune product group) didn’t include a hard reset button or a way to remove the battery that the only thing I can do to reboot it was to try and do the restore sequence or let the battery drain. I tried the restore sequence first…no joy there. So I left it alone and let the battery drain. Once the battery was drained I plugged it in and let it charge for a little bit and then tried to restart it. Guess what? It didn’t work.

So, I think, should I take it apart and unplug the battery? It’s out of warranty…what could I lose? I’ve already lost my 8GB Zune (little did I know that when it died it had 3 days left on it’s warranty and I could have had it fixed for nothing…grrrrr) so… Before going down that route I decided I’d e-mail the internal Zune discussion list within Microsoft. Lo’ and behold I got an almost immediate reply that this is a problem being faced by all Zune 30GB owners and is considered a major issue (good thing I didn’t get the tools out yet). So, I decide to just get to work and keep an eye on the Zune discussion list.

Now I see that not only has MSN picked up on this story, but also CNN as well. This is not looking good as far as publicity. The good news is that I do know that the Zune team is hard at work identifying the problem and providing a solution. What that is I don’t know and even if I did I couldn’t say at this time. I’m very hopeful as I love this thing (good thing I also have a Zune 80 as a backup…but you never really forget your first Zune 🙂 ).

Bummer…

My 8GB Zune dropped into the dog’s water dish for just a couple of seconds…and at first it worked fine…but then I guess some water got into it and now it appears to be dead. I thought I got it out fast enough but I guess I didn’t. Oh well…RIP.