Rockbox on Creative Zen Mozaic (macOS)
(Linux instructions to follow later)
This port is unstable and Rockbox Utility doesn't support the Mozaic, so there's no easy installer. Everything here is manual. Do it at your own risk.
Get the bootloader
Download firmware-zenmozaic.nk from the CreativeZENMozaicPort wiki. Save it somewhere handy.
Erase the stock firmware
- Hold Play, then power on
- A recovery menu appears then select "Reload firmware" and confirm
- The device erases its firmware and waits
Build and run sendfirm
The Mozaic needs a tool called sendfirm to receive the bootloader over MTP. There's no macOS binary, so you'll have to build it.
Build it
# Homebrew, if you don't have it
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
brew install libmtp libusb
# Get the Rockbox source (the official git URL is broken — use GitHub)
git clone https://github.com/Rockbox/rockbox.git
cd rockbox/utils/MTP
The instructions call to run make but that didn't work on macOS for me (not passing the library paths through to the linker). I neded to compile directly instead:
gcc -I/opt/homebrew/opt/libmtp/include \
-L/opt/homebrew/opt/libmtp/lib \
-o sendfirm sendfirm.c -lmtp
If you get libusb errors, add those paths too:
gcc -I/opt/homebrew/opt/libmtp/include \
-I/opt/homebrew/opt/libusb/include \
-L/opt/homebrew/opt/libmtp/lib \
-L/opt/homebrew/opt/libusb/lib \
-o sendfirm sendfirm.c -lmtp
Flash the bootloader
Plug the device in. For me macOS popped up a "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer." message. Just click Ignore... the device is in Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) mode, not presenting a filesystem, so macOS doesn't know what it is and sendfirm doesn't care.
./sendfirm /path/to/firmware-zenmozaic.nk
The Zen should show "Upgrading firmware" and reboot into the Rockbox bootloader.
Format the internal storage
The screen will show "Bootloader: USB Mode". The storage needs to be formatted as FAT with an MBR partition table, not GPT, which is what Disk Utility uses by default.
Find the Zen's disk identifier:
diskutil list
It'll show up as something like disk2. Then format it (be really carefult to make sure you have the right disk. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE STOP):
diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 ROCKBOX MBRFormat /dev/diskX
Eject when done.
Copy Rockbox
- Plug the device back in. It should now appear as a USB drive
- Download the latest build: rockbox.org/dl.cgi?bin=creativezenmozaic
- Unzip it and copy the contents (the
.rockbox folder) to the root of the drive, not into a subfolder
- Eject, unplug, power on
Useful Links
