Zune + magnet Fix Advice

[eaglestrike7339]

I am about to become the Proud Owner of a 30gb Zune. Price? $5. Too good to be true?

Yep, it refuses to turn on. The owner (a smart one indeed), stored his Favorite Media player for a week in a drawer with his friend's flash based players (a couple of nanos).

Later, he pulls his Zune out, hits the power button....nothing. Looks in drawer: Zune was sitting on top of Box o' Rare Earth Magnets!! Hurray!

So, knowing how huge a nerd I am, he is "gifting" it to me.

First thought? Well, Harddrive. Oh yeah, and he had dropped it a few times too, which i'm sure helped.

My question is would the magnets affect anything else other than the harddrive? The system files are stored in dedicated flash memory, which is the case with all disk-based players, right?

Any answers, questions, or comments, please share.


Thanks,
eagle

[Studio2LH]

I don't know about this one... It would make sense to me that only the memory parts (hdd and the flash stuff) would be affected. My toshiba gigabeat did the same thing but it wasn't near any magnets (just didn't turn on one time and never again)

[thefultonhow]

Replacing the hard drive should fix the problem. Nothing else in the player should really be damaged by the magnets (the ROM chips that the firmware is stored on are not affected by magnets). Keep in mind that the Zune uses a 1.8" hard drive, possibly with a non-standard connector, so you should do some research before buying any old hard drive.