Cowon Z2 Media Player

gwa62

Hi everyone, looking for help with my Cowon Z2. It's been left in a drawer for years, and now I can't get it to connect to my PC, maybe it's because I now use Windows 10. My husband thinks we had Windows XP or Windows 7 back then. Anyhow, it still works, so I was going to put more songs on to it from my CD's as my FiiO has just died. My husband looked for drivers or whatever, but no success (obviously). Does anyone know if there is a way to get it working with Windows 10?

Thanks, Gail.

Cisco001

It support up to 16GB SD card.
Can you not transfer your mp3 to SD card and play music that way?

Cisco001

Forgot to say, from my experience if it works in windows 7, it is likely to work in windows 10 as well?

Have you try update firmware?

The latest I could find is v4.47

A.Penny.Saved

http://www.cowonglobal.com/product_wide/COWONZ2/product_page_1.php
Manual with info on connecting and updating the firmware:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/lit_files/58533.pdf
https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/DVD-BluRay-Media-Players/Cowon/Cowon-Z2-MP3-Player-Firmware-4-47.shtml

It looks like it can read NTFS file systems which helps with large video files which it looks like it can play ie H264 MKV etc. It does say that the microSD flash cards support Fat32 which seems odd.

I can not find any reference to a usb driver, it might just see it as a usb storage device with standard microsoft drivers. Did you try formatting a microSD card, try both NTFS and Fat32 and copying some files to the card to see if it can see/play them?

Johnmcl7

When you plug the mp3 player in what does the PC do? Is it prompting you for a driver? I had a couple of Cowons from that era but they used standard USB mass storage drivers so didn't need additional drivers to work with Windows.

Paul_DNAP

Says in the manual you need to tap "Turn on USB storage" when hooked up for the PC to access it. Does the screen come up with anything? Maybe the USB port is dirty/broken?


But if your media is on the SD card then you should be able to use that card in any card reader to check it's in full working order.


(EDIT - looks like a great device, hope you get it going soon!)

A.Penny.Saved

Paul_DNAP wrote: »

Says in the manual you need to tap "Turn on USB storage" when hooked up for the PC to access it. Does the screen come up with anything? Maybe the USB port is dirty/broken?


But if your media is on the SD card then you should be able to use that card in any card reader to check it's in full working order.


(EDIT - looks like a great device, hope you get it going soon!)

It does look very decent for a device of that age. It probably cost a lot of money at the time with it's specs. It would make a decent time passer for when you are stuck waiting in queues, imagine watching your favourite TV episode......

The specs are not very clear and I could not work out whether it has some inbuilt storage. It does mention 8GB to 32GB but whether that applies to microSD support I do not know. It might have a range of inbuilt storage depending upon the device and price.

You need to get it recognised by a PC. Try different USB 2.0 ports and USB cables incase there is a problem with them. Look in device manager to see if there is an entry with no driver, scan for new hardware.

It might be worth looking in Devices and Printers or whatever it is in your version of windows.

Paul_DNAP

There's a What HiFi review, from 2012, they tested one with 16Gb internal for £200, and noted there was a 32Gb for £50 more, and an SD card slot for extra expansion.