Hack your Zune to use it as an external USB drive
Posted on February 13, 2008
Filed Under music gadgets | 36 Comments
Microsoft’s Zune is our favorite electronic gadget. There is a never ending fight over who gets to use the Zune In the lab. It is just so cool. We are testing the 30 gig model and it is great. We have over fifteen full length movies loaded. We also have tons of music and pictures loaded. We have so much content loaded it would take us days and days to use it all. My favorite feature: the ability to output to the television. This is a really cool feature. You can have a picture slide show, play your MP3’s, or even play movies from your Zune on the TV. I loved this feature.
One of the pitfalls of the Zune is that you have to access it through the Zune software. The windows operating system does not see it as an external USB drive. We thought this would be useful. Well, if it is something useful you can bet that there is a hack for it. We searched and sure enough there was a hack for the Zune to make it accessible as an external USB drive.
Please understand this could damage your windows operating system since it involves editing the system registry. Do this only if you want your favorite electronic gadget to do more than it was meant to. You do this at your own risk.
Be sure that you back up your system registry before you attempt this hack. Now that the warnings are out of the way, here is the hack:
1. Turn off the Zune software and unplug the Zune.
2. Run regedit. Hit the start button and select “run”. Type in regedit32 and hit OK or enter.
3. Look for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB\ (note: with Zune software v2 you may have to edit ……\ControlSet002\…..
4. Look for “PortableDeviceNameSpace”. It should be contained in theVid_045e&Pid_0710\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device. Parameters within this string …\USB\ The ##’s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune.
5. Change these values:
a. EnableLegacySupport to 1
b. PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0
c. ShowInShell to 1
6. Plug in your Zune; make sure the Zune software starts up.
7. If all went well you can open “My Computer” and browse your device, though it will not show up as a drive letter.
You should now be able to access both as a hard drive and sync through the Zune software. There was an additional edit to this hack. Edit 2:
- If you use this hack two Zune icons may appear in Windows Explorer. To get rid of one of them go back to the regedit device parameters we edited before and look for \WpdMtpDriver\UseWpdPrivateInterface and change the value from “1” to “0”
- Zune software needs to be open at all times. There is an authentication Mechanism and if you close it you can only view the contents of your Zune and not play them. By pressing the “Start Sync” in the Zune software, temporarily you get write access to files and folders during the sync. Just drag and drop files into their proper folders. Music, Video, or Pictures. Do not delete any files from the Zune root directory.
You are done. This proved to be the most useful hack we found for the Zune. Thirty gigs is a great deal of space. The hack turns your Zune into a portable hard drive. Apply the hack to another computer and you transfer huge amounts of data between the two. Overall, the Zune is the best electronic gadget we have used in a long while. Great fun!
P.S. There are some late reports that some could not sync after hack. If this happens just reinstall the Zune drivers and possibly the software and you are golden.
And if you don’t have a Zune this far, it’s time to buy a Zune.
Image courtesy of tomeppy
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36 Responses to “Hack your Zune to use it as an external USB drive”
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thank you it really helping me
this hack has been out since the zune first came out in 06
Seems like an obvious hack and a trivial use for an expensive gadget, but I’m sure there are some people out there that will find this useful. Thanks.
Thanks.
This helped a lot!!!!
Hi.
Maybe i’m just stupid, but can someone help me with this? I mean I tried running “regedit32″ and it didn’t work, maybe i’m doing something wrong?
Thanks,
Piper
Yay! I figured it out! Thanks so much!
i wonder i have the 80 gig and i think microsoft found out bout the hack and prevented it cuz it wont lemme rename the file. any way around it?
When I try to do this, i type in “regedit32″ but it won’t let me do anything. It keeps giving me this message. “Window cannot find ‘regedit32′. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.” What can I do to make this work?
Ok, so I got my previous problem to work. Overlooked the last editing. haha. But I have a problem i can’t fix. How do u get permission to put files onto the Zune?
Does this run on the Zune 80 too?
If i install this hack and I delete my music from my HD will it also delete the music in my zune?
Hey thats cool… but i am having some problem can anybody help me out in that..I am can see my zune player as the USB drive but I am only able to drag the media like audio or video file i cant drag any text doc. or any .pdf file or other thing…. may be i am missing something…. so can anybody help me out.. thankx….
Am not able to copy ny of my music or video thru the method it says u dont hav permission to place a video on the device..
Any way microsoft could make this ( the external drive ) the deafult? I should think we would be able to use the windows media player, and sync directly from that.
If you keep getting the “Don’t have permission” error, you have to have the Zune software synching while you are Draggin’ and Droppin’, otherwise you don’t have access. Hope this helps!
I tried this zune, and it keeps telling me that I do not have access to the zune!
help! i can reverse sync!
http://social.zune.net/member/jmfiddie
How do you gain access to change permissions of files ? Like renaming files and folders ?
i did all that and it still didn’t show up
I saw that you need to have it syncing while you transfer files but the problem is that it syncs so damn fast that it is impossible to put anything on it..so do I have to put something new in the folders it is synced with every time I want to put a non media file on the zune so it gives me more of a time window? that just seems really tedious and makes me think I might as well use my flash drive. Why did I bother with this in the first place….momentary loss of sanity I guess…I mean who REALLY needs to use this as a mass storage device? go buy a 2 gig flash drive for 20 bucks…if you can afford a zune you can afford that…the only point to this is so that you can take music off the zune and onto another computer…ok so it is kinda useful in that respect..so yeah…I forgot my point and this comment is waaaay too long.
as for you people complaining about ‘regedit32′, try the following:
regedit.exe
regedit
regedit64.exe
regedit64
i did every thing it worked for one file and that’s it. it keeps telling me i dont have a permission to copy the file in my zune. any help?
Yeup, this hack is all over the place with noobs screaming its the best thing since sliced bread but in reality it does nothing more but allow you to view your files
waste of time
Hi,
I do not have permission to these files, it keeps saying “access is denied,” how do i get them? help me please.
Jocelyn
Yeah but maybe this hack could possibly allow some people to use their zune with “usb interface cables built-in to some factory vehicles” i.e. Honda Civic
hi, I’m having trouble with adding files into the zune. I have followed all the steps and found the ’storage’ symbol in my computer and I can see the files in my Zune. (for some odd reason, i can only see the symbol when i don’t have the zune software up) I’m able to delete files from the Zune but can’t drag items to add and get responses such as “do not have permission” in handling the files. please please help.
-jen
It’s not a waste of time I have family photo’s lost to a vista crash, (thank you microsoft for vista
.. and the only place they exsist is on my zune. The software won’t sync as long as the explorer is open I get a “name space is using the device” error … there’s gotta be a way to change the permissions somewhere in the registry…. I shouldn’t have let the damn thing update to zune 3. whatever . to late ..
i have a pretty odd question… i have 2 zunes one doesnt work any longer… is there any enclosures i could get for the hard drive and use it as an external HDD only
yeah ive seen this on sevral sites and im wondering does it not work on vista i can change evreything but then i open my computer and nothings there
I did this and i got the icon in my computer but no files are in it my zune is working fine and the files are there my software is 3.1 Zune 30 and im running windows vista.Am i doing something wrong?
Followed the instructions and device appears, but I can’t copy anything even during the sync. Thoughts?
regedit32 is misspelled it should be regedt32
Yes, I can see my zune and storage, and delete files, but still have no permission to add any file.
Which version about your zune 30g and zune software?
how would i go about doing this in linux?
waste of time / doesn’t work.
1. If you have Z SW (v4.0.740) open, you cannot access the USB Folder from M$Explorer, even though it’s there.
2. If the Z SW closed, you can access the USB Folder from M$Explorer, but cannot write to it because you dont have permissions on the directory.
3. If you open the Z SW and sync a large file, then kill the process to maintain the relationship as open (as some have eluded to), still doesn’t work.
Guys – We need a better reg hack to allow files to be written to the device, something that will remove or permanently unlock the device to write.
I imaging the *nix folks could just reset the directory permission with a “chown 777 *” – there has to be a similar method in Win, we just need to think “outside the bun”
Good Day!!!
First of all i want to thanks of the info,. i have 120gb zune, i done the hacking procedure but i cant paste any files or creating a folder.. tnx again & i need some more information about this problem..
I was wondering if there was a way to use this same philosophy to access hidden folders on my LG Rumor 2. Please tell me if you know.