Creative MF8235 Power supply issue

[kicken]

Greetings, my GF has a Creative MF8235 sound bar that recently stopped functioning.  We discovered the fuse blew in the power connector and tried replacing it, but the new fuse blew immediately after plugging it in.  I was able to pull the power supply module out of the device and did a bit of trial and error debugging by removing some components and then re-adding them one by one to see when the device would blow the fuse.  It looks like the cause is an inductor, but I'm not sure if I'm correctly identifying the device.  Attached is an image of the board, with the suspected bad component highlighted.



With this component removed, the board no longer blows the fuse when plugged in and the output connector shows 24v as expected.  Is this an inductor?  I tried measuring the resistance of it and it shows zero ohms, but I'm not sure if that is a proper test for this.  If I want to try and replace it, how can I determine what replacement component I need to get?  Does it need to be replaced, or can I leave it out?  I haven't tried installing the power supply into the sound bar again yet, but since it's showing 24v on the outputs it seems to be functional without it.

Thanks