Zune - Firmware update leads to C00D1249

Zune - Firmware update leads to C00D1249 15 Jan 2008 21:34

Ive started using my Zune again lately and a couple of days ago it wanted me to update to the 2.3 firmware. Apparently this happens once a month. No problem. Lets go!

For those of you without a Zune, the firmware update process consists of a the Zune software uploading a new CAB file to the Zune and then triggering a series of reboots. Cool!

For those of you without a Zune, you will also be blissfully unaware of how brittle this process can be, you see 20 seconds after my firmware updated started, the Zune rebooted and displayed a very unhelpful message "Please connect the Zune to your PC and reinstall the Firmware" - eh?

On the PC side I get an even less helpful message stating "Your device failed to update, error C00D1249". And then you guessed it, time to update the firmware all over again ;)

Unfortunately once you have entered this cycle you are largely trapped and left with a nice Brown, Black or White brick on your desk.

So how to fix it? Well the KB article on my subject is decidedly unhelpful other than to tell me that there are quite a few nasty errors I didnt encounter (except I probably hit the worst one - typical luck..). Some better documentation would be nice, although I did enjoy the suggestion of "5. Try to update the software on the Zune device again. You may succeed on the second try." :)

Thankfully for them and me Im a little more persistant about fixing these things and after trying a fair number of combinations and learning about all the fancy shortcut keys for rebooting or reformatting your Zune (none of which helped much either) I found that the problem seems to stem from being connected to a particular USB port which the device doesnt like. On plugging the Zune in to a new USB port on a seperate PC the firmware update finally succeeded. Daringly (or insanely?) I reformatted the Zune and reproed the issue (and fix) again just to verify the behavior - again a different USB port on another PC and sorted.

So looks like that USB port is off the menu for my Zune for now. For those of you with bricked Zunes desperately searching for some help, I hope this solves your problem since it sorted mine.

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