I tried to upgrade my Zune’s firmware to the new 2.5 version a couple of days ago and really messed things up. Everything was going fine until my Zune froze for 8 hours on a screen saying “Please wait. Do not disconnect device”. Well, I know the dangers of interrupting a firmware update, but I decided that if it had been at that screen for so long, then I could simply disconnect the device, reset it, and then try the upgrade again.

After disconnecting it, the Zune stayed on that screen. Plugging it back into the computer wasn’t working either because now it wasn’t even recognizing the device. I tried doing a reset (holding down the back and up buttons), but it just stayed stuck on that screen. I thought that letting the battery run down would help to reset it, so I ran the battery out and plugged it in last night… Same screen, same response from the device.

I did some research on the internet and think I know where I went wrong. When my Zune first stuck on that screen it was waiting for me to accept a user agreement in the Zune software. The idiots that designed that software put in two vertical scroll bars, and I used one of them to read the user agreement, but there was another scroll bar that had to be used to make the “Next” button visible. Due to that poor design, I screwed up the update.

I called Microsoft this morning and talked to them about it. The woman was very helpful until it came to the part where they needed to repair my Zune and it wasn’t under warranty. She said it would cost $195!!! That’s nearly the price of one brand new. I politely ended the call with her and proceeded to search the net for a place that would repair it for a reasonable cost.

I found a site called rapidrepair.com that claims to be fast, and they will do a free diagnostic on your device if you ship it to them ($8.00). Now that is a good deal! Since I don’t think there are any hardware problems, the firmware just needs to be flashed I think it should be a simple repair. I’ll ship it to them today and then wait to see how much they want to charge me to repair it. If I don’t like their quote, they will ship it back to me at no additional charge.