Zune hacked for USB drive use

November 23rd, 2006 by Dustin

Microsoft won’t let the Zune function as an external USB drive? Fine. We’ll make it function as an external USB drive ourselves. Looks like the fine chaps over at ZuneBoards.com have divined a method to make the non-MSC non-MTP Zune open the hell up and act like a real drive for god’s sake.

Before following the instructions please make sure you back up your registry values. If you are a novice we don’t recommend this and please make changes at your own risk.

• First make sure that neither the zune software is running nor your zune is connected to your PC.
• Then go to the start menu, click run, type regedt32 and press ok.
• With in the left frame browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIN->System->ControlSet001->Enum->USB
• Select the USB folder and then from the top menu bar click Edit and then Find.
• Type PortableDeviceNameSpace within the text box and click Find Next.
• This should be contained in the Vid_####&Pid_####\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device Parameters within the above …\USB\. The ##’s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune
• With in the right frame select and change the necessary values:
• EnableLegacySupport to 1
• PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0
• ShowInShell to 1

Now start the zune software and plug in your zune, you should be able to browse your device through MyComputer Icon on your desktop.

Thanks to zuneboards.com for this great mod. If you would like to follow the above instrutions via screenshots then visit zuneboards.com.

Posted in Mods & Hacks |

5 Responses

1. Fe Says:
   March 1st, 2007 at 12:30 am

   where can i fine the screen shots? I looked and searched on zuneboard, but nothing…

2. Mike Says:
   March 1st, 2007 at 6:40 am

   Fe, I see you get a 404 error. This post if from a while back and they made design and other changes to their site which resulted in the post being removed.

3. BJ Says:
   July 1st, 2007 at 6:26 pm

   I think the zune software engineers must have fixed up the software so you cant do this any more. I found the folder with all the files, but couldn’t find the files in the last 2 steps. I assume the hack was patched and that’s why the original page is missing.

4. ShockMan Says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   I think BJ was right. The b******* at Microsoft probably patched their new firmware and software upgrades so you can’t do this anymore. I was able to mod the reg files, but all the files are locked on the drive. My Zune shows up as an ‘unknown file’ in my computer and with the little zune icon as well. But when I try creating new folders, files, and copying files onto the zune, it tells me “the new folder could not be created in this location. The device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected”. You guys may wana look this over again, because I only use about 5 gigs for my vids, auds, and pics, and the other 25 gigs goes completely to waist (leave it to microsoft to ruin a perfectly good piece of tech).

   peace out.
   ~~ShockMan

5. Eric Says:
   December 13th, 2007 at 11:30 am

   Well mine worked until I upgraded to Version 2.2. Anyone else have this problem?

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