It seems owners of the 30GB version of the Microsoft Zune are getting an unwelcome New Year’s gift: non-working units.

According to Engadget, all versions of the 30GB Zunes have stopped working with the change over to the new year.  Making the story even a bit odder, according to BLORGE, it happened at 3 AM Eastern Standard Time, which leads people to believe it had to do with Midnight Pacific Standard Time, the time-zone of Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA.

Users are finding their media players completely locked down, and even trying to do a reset isn’t helping things at all.  The only solution people have found so far is to actually open up the unit, unplug the battery, and then plug it back in, but this is not an easy task for the average user.

Microsoft is reported to be working on it, and there is a thread on their forums you can follow, but due to traffic the site is not currently responding correctly.  You can also check the Zune support site for more information, though as of right now it just says they are aware of the problem and are working on it.  There is currently no estimate on when a fix will be in place, or how users will even be able to implement it seeing as their units are completely locked down at this time.

It is curious how this is only effecting one version of the devices, and not the entire line.  One wouldn’t expect their firmware to be that radically different based on the size of their hard drives, but apparently they are.