Creative Zen Vision:M

[Sonic]

ditto on what the last guy said, except that i use vector linux (a slackware variant), and am planning on learning C++ soon

[mophead740]

I can help too, especially if you need someone using windows xp sp2 or even vista if you need it (I have both).

alternatively i can alwyas crack open my ubuntu 7.10 install.

i dont have much programming skill but if you tell me what to do im pretty good at following instructions.

[Chronon]

We want to keep the development topics as clean and to the point as possible.  mcuelenaere pointed out a patch that he would like tested.  So that would be a good place to start if you want to jump in.

You can find plenty of documentation on how to apply patches and compile Rockbox here: DocsIndex#For_Developers

General questions about compiling or setting up a build environment should be posted to the Getting Started and Compiling forum.  Specific problems with applying this patch can still go here.

[mcuelenaere]

I don't want to get people's hopes up, but today I managed to get Rockbox booting on my ZVM although no keys were working.

I'll see if I can post a picture tomorrow..

As usual, the patch is available at the tracker.

edit:
video
image 1
image 2

[tjfontaine]

great work mcuelenaere! I finally received my zif connectors so will try and replicate your setup especially since your patch applies and compiles without any futzing about.

[Zeroth]

I already did a google search, as well as a site-wide search on rockbox.org. However, it appears this is a new problem... So, I applied the latest patch for the ZVM port, it worked. However, when i tried to compile, it gave me a lot, and I repeat, a lot of errors in firmware/drivers/isp1583.c

Upon checking the file... it appears there are about 5 different versions of isp1583! 0.0 I would say that the code got duplicated several times, except each version appears to be slightly different. Is there something wrong with the patch?

[mcuelenaere]

To people who want to replicate my case this is what you got to do:

• you've got to mount your ZVM's HDD to your computer and format the second partition (starting at byte 0x3200200) as a FAT file system
   -> to do so (on Linux):
  

Code: [Select]

losetup -o 52429312 /dev/loop0 /dev/XXX
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
mount -t vfat /dev/loop0 /mnt/XXX

• set up a Rockbox build environment, apply my latest patch and compile it as "Normal"
• mount the FAT partition you've created in step 1 and copy all files in ./rockbox/* to it (except for rockbox.zvm)
• use either utils/MTP/sendfirm or an other MTP utility to upload the firmware (rockbox.zvm)

I already did a google search, as well as a site-wide search on rockbox.org. However, it appears this is a new problem... So, I applied the latest patch for the ZVM port, it worked. However, when i tried to compile, it gave me a lot, and I repeat, a lot of errors in firmware/drivers/isp1583.c

Upon checking the file... it appears there are about 5 different versions of isp1583! 0.0 I would say that the code got duplicated several times, except each version appears to be slightly different. Is there something wrong with the patch?

Try starting with a clean tree and applying the newest patch.

[mitch04]

is there anyway I can do it without taking it apart? Great work mate

[Mardoxx]

No, not as of yet.

Great work btw.. amazing to see how far its come on

[Transience]

I was playing around with my ZVM, and I found something strange:
I booted the player into recovery mode,
Erased the firmware           (Reload Firmware)
Ran disk cleanup                 (Clean Up)
And formatted the player    (Format All)
Now when I connect the player to my PC, it still shows up as a creative zen vision M, but now it shows up as a 50mb partition formatted in "Generic Hierarchial". Which part of the ZVM's HDD am i seeing here?

[mcuelenaere]

I was playing around with my ZVM, and I found something strange:
I booted the player into recovery mode,
Erased the firmware           (Reload Firmware)
Ran disk cleanup                 (Clean Up)
And formatted the player    (Format All)
Now when I connect the player to my PC, it still shows up as a creative zen vision M, but now it shows up as a 50mb partition formatted in "Generic Hierarchial". Which part of the ZVM's HDD am i seeing here?

This is the minifs partition aka the firmware part; it contains the main firmware and some database files. This is also where Rockbox is stored.

[mophead740]

Hey,

I've been thinking lately about ways in which we can reformat the zvm for rb without plugging the drive directly into the computer.

and i thought the only way I know to do it, is through the media explorer (that creative thing that you install but never use lol).

but anyway, you can use that software to reformat the zvm.

is there anyway that we can reverse engineer this app to reformat it for rockbox, or is this beyond the ability of anyone here?

i think development would really speed up here if we could get a software formatting solution available because there would be so many more people willing to help.

so just thought I'd post this.

any ideas??

Ben

edit by mcuelenaere:
fixed some spelling mistakes
laughs, sorry about my spelling, english is actually my first language and im pretty good at speaking and writing it, I just type too fast and am too lazy to get the spelling right all the time (i typed slower on this one). Blame MSN.

[mcuelenaere]

Hey,

I've been thinking lately about ways in which we can reformat the zvm for rb without plugging the drive directly into the computer.

and i thought the only way I know to do it, is through the media explorer (that creative thing that you install but never use lol).

but anyway, you can use that software to reformat the zvm.

is there anyway that we can reverse engineer this app to reformat it for rockbox, or is this beyond the ability of anyone here?

i think development would really speed up here if we could get a software formatting solution available because there would be so many more people willing to help.

so just thought I'd post this.

any ideas??

Ben

edit by mcuelenaere:
fixed some spelling mistakes

Could you specify "reformatting the ZVM" ? (I've never used the Creative Media Explorer)

Even if the HDD were formatted, we would still have to get direct access to it so we can get a FAT partition on it.

And BTW, it is possible to do this purely by software; the only thing that needs to be done is the USB driver, which is currently blocked by the lack of stable working interrupts.

If this would work, we could upload (bootloader) Rockbox through Recovery Mode and enable the USB chip, only giving us the second partition which your OS (Windows/Linux/Mac OS X/...) should format as FAT. Then you would upload the whole .rockbox/ folder and again enter Recovery Mode. Then you should upload "normal" Rockbox which will find the FAT partition and load all the needed files.

The only disadvantage of this method, is that dual booting won't be working (as the original partition (cfs) will be deleted, so even if the OF would be loaded it would give undefined behavior)

[imfloflo]

Hey , i'm owner of ZVM 30gb and i want to help and test this firmware on my player.
Is there a description  or a HowTo , to install your Rockbox firmware on the player.
I am a student in a school computer engineer and I'd like to see what it gives.
Thx Flo.

[mcuelenaere]

Hey , i'm owner of ZVM 30gb and i want to help and test this firmware on my player.
Is there a description  or a HowTo , to install your Rockbox firmware on the player.
I am a student in a school computer engineer and I'd like to see what it gives.
Thx Flo.

I'll put the current install method at the wiki; you'll find it a few posts back..

update