Kosh, I would not worry about the firmware at the moment. If the player is recognised by windows right click on the player and select Properties then Tools tab and run an error check selecting all options. If this does not fix the problem use MP3 Player Disk Tool to re-format the player you can download MP3 Player Utilities 3.68 here
http://www.mympxplayer.com/dload.php...file&file_id=2
You may also want to drop a personel message to fizzle05, he is a knowledgeable guy has a player the same as yours.
Let us know how you go.