Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Zoom H2 help needed!

My Zoom H2 was working beautifully with MacOSX Tiger. But then I upgraded to Leopard and I can no longer get the Mac to recognize the H2. Any suggestions?

Do you need a driver for the zoom?

I found this on their site:

Please note: The Zoom H2 will not mount as a USB Drive on MAC OS X 10.5.0 Leopard unless you update to H2 Firmware version 1.2 or higher.

You may download the latest H2 frimware and read the installation instructions at Zoom's site HERE (if the link ask you to install a language pack, you can just cancel)

the above note is from this site:
http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916

Triryche, thanks for the links. I'll do the upgrade tomorrow when I'm fresh.

Bob

Yes, this is all you need to do, but as I recall when I had this problem, I had to download the firmware update on another Mac not running Leopard, one that recognizes the Zoom H2, and then I did the upgrade and went back to my Leopard machine and all was well.

Nothing is simple! I went to the link Triryche suggested and found, as CSCL pointed out, that it was next to impossible to upgrade directly via Leopard. I happened to have a windows machine and tried the upgrade there, only to find out, after a couple of wasted hours, that my Windows 2000 would not do, only XP or Vista. What a pain! Now I need to locate a friend who has Tiger or XP or Vista.

That does sound like a real pain in the butt. Does Mac not have the ability to unzip files, or what? I seem to recall that I just had to download the file, unzip it, and copy it to the memory card. I don't do Mac, but it seems strange to me that one couldn't do that on a Mac.

I believe the problem is the last step. How can you copy the file if the Mac doesn't recognize the H2. If the Mac recognized the H2, then the original problem wouldn't exist.

Ted

The issue isn't simply unzipping the file (certainly the Mac can do that, as well as Win2K). The problem is the catch 22 that he faces, he can't get his Leopard Mac to recognize the Zoom as a storage device until he upgrades the Zoom firmware, however, he can't upgrade the Zoom firmware because he can't use his Mac to copy the firmware onto the Zoom, until he updates the firmware ........

One other solution is to use a USB based memory card reader. Take the card out of the Zoom, put it into the reader, connect the reader to the Mac, copy the firmware to the appropriate place on the memory card, put card back in Zoom, boot Zoom, voila! Memory card readers are chez cheap (Fry's has them regularly for $10).

I suppose this thread should stand as a warning to those current Tiger users with a Zoom H2 who are planning to move up to Leopard. Fortunately for me, I had another Mac running Tiger, so I was able to update the firmware through that Mac, then connect back to my laptop running Leopard.

The good news is that all will be well once you get the firmware updated!

bitWrangler has it exactly right, I have the unzipped file sitting on my Mac, but can't get it to the Zoom. I'm going to take bitWrangler's advice and use an SD-USB card reader.

It would have been nice if the upgrade instructions at the Zoom website had said as much in plain English.

Thanks all for your help.

Following up on CSCL's comment, those Leopard users who are considering purchasing a Zoom H2 should make sure that its operating system is version 1.3.

Ahh, thanks, Ted and BitWrangler. I never connect the Zoom directly to my PC, so I wasn't thinking about that. I always plug it into my memory card reader. My PC has one of those 16-in-1 readers built in. I just take it for granted that everyone has the same, but I know that not everyone does. I'm a bit slow sometimes.

Yes, the memory card reader should make all the difference (assuming it works with Mac.)

I would recomend that all Zoom users go out and get themselves a memory card reader anyway. In testing out both a H4 and H2, the memory card reader was MUCH faster and getting files on and off the SD card than directly hooking up the Zoom to the USB port. Even on my laptop that only has a USB 1.1 port, the card reader was faster. Who knows why. It should be the same if the port on the laptop is only 1.1, but it's not. Granted the difference when you compare the Zoom to a computer with USB 2 is drastic. When you compare a Zoom to a card reader on the 1.1 port, it's not so drastic, but still signifigant enough that I won't leave home without my card reader.