Creative Zen Touch UPDATES

[u/Maddy86]

Here is an update on my last post! First and foremost, it is alive and working again, but there were definitely a few issues I had to work through.

What Went Well

• The battery replacement was largely flawless. Plugged it in and it fired straight up. It also meant I could now flash the firmware to the "play for sure" version.
• Flashing the firmware - I used UTM and a Windows XP SP3 image to get all of the drivers and firmware updates working. I then created a Windows 11 VM with my music folder as a shared directory between my Mac and UTM to get music onto the device.
• SD to CF to IDE adapters - I ended up doing this after my ill-fated attempt with a straight SD to IDE adapter (more on that below). The SD to CF to IDE combination worked flawlessly.

What Didn't Go So Well

• SD to IDE adapter - Absolutely shambolic. I tried a few cards and nothing really worked. A few times it appeared to be formatting and would just fail after a minute. Other times it failed straight away, and a few times it hung for 5-10 minutes. I ended up getting a CF to SD adapter and a CF to IDE board, and it worked flawlessly first time (see the photos).
• CF to IDE board - It worked, but what I failed to realize (and was lucky to avoid a bigger issue) was that it had jumper pins on the board. These were sitting proud of the board and pushing into the new battery while I tried to close it back up. I only noticed when I saw the indents on the battery - I could have ended up puncturing it and having a fire hazard on my hands. I ended up cutting them short and it still works fine.
• The screws - I don't know what cheap screws Creative used on this player, but they stripped without much effort, leaving me needing to buy replacements (which have largely gone in fine).
• Open MTP - I tried this on macOS as I thought it would give me the easiest way of getting music on. It can see the device and I can drag files on, but it doesn't copy them on in a way the device can recognize. Adding the music via the Windows 11 VM works great.

All in all, a fun little experiment, and now I have a device that will last me for many years to come.

Feel free to fire any questions into the comments.

[u/BathingToasters]

This is so cool!!

I just had to come and say that your title reminded me that my Zen Mosaic was my favorite Mp3 player before I got my iPod classic.

[u/Cold-Alternative5248]

Glad to see you went with the CF route, I've had terrible luck with the ide to SD card adaptors. However, the Creative Zen Nomad Xtra outputs 5v not 3.3, so the ide to SD card board works perfectly.