Prospector,
1) Connect your player to your PC.
2) Open MP3 Player Upgrade Tool ( part of MP3 Player Utilities)
3) If the Upgrade Tool detects your player Then you should be able to load a new firmware to your player. When it finishes loading the program will exit and your player will reboot and disappear from Explorer. Wait about 30 seconds. When the player reboots it should show again in Explorer, if the screen of your player is still blue or black then the firmware was not suitable and you need to go back to step 2 and try another one.
If you try a dump.bin file and MP3 Upgrade Tool can not install the dump file it may not have been repaired when it was extracted. You then need to name it dump.bin and put it into the s1fwx folder and run the repair.bat. Once you have run the repair.bat you can try to load it to your player again. You only need to use the repair.bat if you have a problem with the dump file.
If you start the MP3 Player Upgrade Tool and it says "No Device Detected" then you can try to turn the player off at the switch and back on again. If the MP3 Upgrade Tool will still not connect to the player you need to open your player and short the memory chip as explained in the DEAD PLAYER RECOVERY GUIDE. This will reset the chip and when you run the MP3 Upgrade Tool it will give you a message saying that your player is in RECOVERY MODE and waiting for you to load the firmware. When the player is in Recovery Mode it will not let you load a dump.bin file you must load a Full Version Firmware from
HERE
Once you have loaded the full firmware and your player has rebooted and again connects with windows you can try more dump files. If the player stops being detected by the MP3 Upgrade Tool you need to again short the chip and load a full firmware, then try more dumps.
Eventually you will find the right one and your player will reboot and be working again.