So I buckled down this evening and tried several different firmware versions with no luck , the computer just would n't recognize the player . Poking around online yielded a hint that since Creative 's firmware sucks it had a conflict with Windows Media Player 11 . I dutifully rolled my WMP back to 10 but still had no luck . Another expedition into Google yielded a tantalizing clue !

Question: What may have been the problem ?
Answer: A problem with Google .None of the above choices .Rolling back the WMP to 10 .The computer .