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Wiki > Main > CreativeZENXFiPort

This port is still unstable, use it at your own risks. Please read the important notes !!

This port shares most of its code with the CreativeZENPort, refer to this one for cross check or if it is out of date.

Forum discussion

Creative ZEN X-Fi New Ports thread

Port Status

feature status comments
Boot 50% Often works, but sometimes doesn't (hangs)
LCD 100% LCD working.
Keys 90% Buttons are working but the driver could be smarter and save power.
Music playback 100% Everything works
FM Radio 90% Everything works but the driver might not be of the greatest quality.
Recording 0% Untested.
Power Management 30% No frequency scaling, no battery calibration, we only have cpu idle. Charging works
SD 90% Internal storage and SD works. SD write-protection is ignored at the moment.
USB 90% Everything works, except plug/unplug can crash
Manual 0% TBD
Rockbox Utility 0% TBD
Speaker 0% Need glue code to enable it.

Important notes

Disk Usage

There are some issues with sharing disk space with the OF. See CreativeZENPort for more details.

Power Off

The OF cannot power off properly, you need to reset to actually power off and reboot to rockbox. See CreativeZENPort for more details.

Bootloader features

Booting to the OF

Hold the "back" button while powering on to boot to the OF. See CreativeZENPort for more details.

Obtain the bootloader

The bootloader can be installed using three different methods. The recommended one will be the automatic method using RockboxUtility, but this is not yet working. Instead, use the prebuilt method below.

Automatic method

Semi-Automatic method

Linux

See CreativeZENPort. It is the same procedure except for a few points:
  • Obviously you need to use the X-Fi installer
  • You need to select the Zen X-Fi when configuring the build
  • the bootloader file will be named bootloader-zenxfi.creative

Prebuilt

Since RockboxUtility is not ready for the task, I uploaded a prebuilt image of the bootloader here: firmware-zenxfi.nk.

Installing the bootloader

When the bootloader is built, you have to install it. Note that installing the bootloader is only required once (or on bootloader updates, which are pretty rare). To update rockbox itself, you don't have to do this. You will need to format the device after the bootloader installation, as described in the next section.

Very Important: in order to perform the upgrade, first turn off your device and then boot into recovery mode by holding the play button on boot. It will show a menu in which you should select "Reload firmware" and confirm. After having erased the firmware, you can proceed below.

Automatic method

RockboxUtility should be able to do that in the future.

Semi-automatic method (Windows)

An alternative method under Windows is to repack the bootloader in the installer using the zentools and use the installer normally. This has not been tested yet.

Manual method

See CreativeZENPort, this is exactly the same procedure but using the bootloader for the X-Fi.

Formatting the device for Rockbox

Rockbox and Creative OS do not use the same file system so one cannot use both at the same time. In order to run Rockbox, you will need to reformat the internal storage as FAT. If you want to restore the Creative OS, you will need to reformat it using the recovery mode. It is strongly advised to put music on the SD card since the internal storage handling might change in the future and require formatting once again.

Formatting for Rockbox

See CreativeZENPort.

Formatting for Creative OS

See CreativeZENPort.

Downloading and installing Rockbox

Download the first package found here. Copy the contents of this .ZIP file to the device.

-- AmauryPouly - 11 Nov 2013

r12 - 02 Apr 2021 - 20:46:06 - UnknownUser

Copyright © by the contributing authors.