I was unaware that you couldn’t use the first-gen Zune as an external drive via USB without hacking it and now, apparently, the new firmware has locked down that hack. I wouldn’t know, I hardly used my Zune since I didn’t have enough hard drive space on my MacBook to install Windows, which I’ve done since my upgrade to Leopard and I finally got myself an external. Oh, XP, how I’ve missed thee. Nevertheless, the crafty folks over at the Zunerama forums have figured it all out and now you may resume using your Zune as a USB drive.
First, it’s based on the registry hack from before – (described at this link: http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=970.0)
The difference with the new firmware is that the registry keys have changed. The new registry keys to be modified are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USB\VID_####&PID_####\########-####-####-####-############\Device
ParametersModify the same three keys as before, and your Zune will serve as an external drive. A different icon will display in the shell, but you’ll have the same functionality.
The tipster did this using Vista Home Premium with a Zune30 with the newest firmware.
The usual disclaimers apply: backup your registry first; be very careful; and don’t blame us if things go wrong.
Hacking the new Zune firmware, to use Zune as a USB drive [Zunerama]