Creative Nomad Zen Reflections

In the middle of 2004 I purchased a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra portable MP3 player. “MP3 player” was not quite a commonplace concept yet but the word “iPod” was beginning to catch on. When describing this new toy to people, I usually described it as “about the same as an iPod but about 1/2 the price” which was absolutely true when I purchased it.

Here is my Nomad compared to a 1st generation Apple iPod Touch, my current MP3 player (and more):


Creative Nomad Zen Xtra compared to Apple iPod Touch (1st gen)

The Nomad Zen Xtra served me well for 3 solid years until I finally got a proper iPod in summer of 2007. I have kept the unit around since then for no particular reason. I decided to disassemble and photograph it before I send the battery and electronics off to their respective recycling destinations.


Creative Nomad Zen Xtra with its front plate and battery removed

The Nomad Zen Xtra was highly user-servicable and upgradeable. At the time I put it out of service, the battery could barely run for 5 hours (whereas, 10-12 hours was no problem when it was new). A replacement battery would be easy enough to order from assorted battery shops on the internet.


Creative Nomad Zen Xtra with back plate and hard drive removed

Have more than 40 GB of songs? Take off the back of the unit, remove the 2.5″ 40 GB IDE HD and replace with a larger one. That never proved to be necessary for me; in fact, I soon realized after I bought it that the lower-end 30 GB model would have been well more than enough.

The 40 GB HD from the unit is still perfectly good. I decided to hook it up to a Linux computer and see if there is anything I could work out about the filesystem. Before I got too far into it, a little Googling led me to a Python utility called zenrecover.py. Works famously:

$ python zenrecover.py /dev/sdc songs /home/melanson/mnt/zen
0% 3.6MB/s "Bizet_Intermezzo_from_Carmen.mp3" (6.8MB)

Just for fun, I dumped all the songs from the unit. I discovered a few things I had long forgotten and had never made the transition into my iPod. Curiously, the very first items that the utility dumped (likely because they occupied the first parts of the filesystem) were a selection of classical tunes as played by the “Beijing Central Phil Orchestra”. These songs came with the unit. It’s notable that the software transferred them off because the packaged software did not allow the user to do so (I’m pretty sure it allowed all music that was downloaded to be transferred off).

Ugh, that packaged software had to be the worst part about the Nomad Zen Xtra. I know lots of users like to chastise iTunes over a range of pet peeves. I think such people have simply never been exposed to anything worse, like this software.

11 thoughts on “Creative Nomad Zen Reflections

  1. Multimedia Mike Post author

    I’ve recycled many electronics in my day. There comes a point when I cant justify holding onto a huge cache of ancient computer components.

    A do intend to put the 40 GB HD into service in another capacity. I’m not sure if the rest of the unit still worked, though. Before I disassembled it, I plugged it in once more but couldn’t make it turn on.

  2. RogerSoifdi

    The link to the pyton script does not work anymore. even google, with the zenrecover expression target a wrong page.

  3. Zak

    Could someone post the track list of Beijing Central Philharmonic Orchestra songs that came with the Zen? My player’s hard drive recently died and I want to find those songs again!

    Thanks so much!

  4. Multimedia Mike Post author

    @Zak: Here you go:

    Bach_Air_On_G_String.mp3
    Bach_Prelude_in_C.mp3
    Beethoven_Fur_Elise.mp3
    Beethoven_Minuet_in_G.mp3
    Beethoven_Moonlight_Sonata.mp3
    Beethoven_Romance_in_F.mp3
    Beethoven_Symphony_No.5.mp3
    Bizet_Aragonaise_from_Carmen.mp3
    Bizet_Carillon_from_L’Arlesienne_I.mp3
    Bizet_Intermezzo_from_Carmen.mp3
    Bizet_Song_of_Toreadors.mp3
    Brahms_Hungarian_No.5.mp3
    Brahms_Waltz_in_A_Flat.mp3
    Chopin_Etude_in_D_Op.10_No.3.mp3
    Chopin_Fantasie_Impromptu.mp3
    Chopin_Minute_Waltz.mp3
    Chopin_Nocturne_in_B_flat_minor.mp3
    Chopin_Prelude_in_A.mp3
    Chopin_Raindrop_Prelude.mp3
    Chopin_Waltz_in_A_Flat.mp3
    Chopin_Waltz_in_C#minor.mp3
    Debussy_1st_Arabesque.mp3
    Debussy_Clair_De_Lune.mp3
    Debussy_The_Girl_With_The_Flaxen_Hair.mp3
    Delibes_Coppelia_Suite.mp3
    Dvorak_Humoresque.mp3
    Dvorak_New_World_4th_Movement.mp3
    Faure_Song_Without_Words_No.3.mp3
    Glinka_Russlan_and_Ludmilla_Overture.mp3
    Gossec_Gavotte_In_D.mp3
    Grieg_Anitra’s_Dance.mp3
    Grieg_Solveig’s_Song_From_Peer_Gynt.mp3
    Handel_Passaccaglia.mp3
    Haydn_Surprise_Symphony.mp3
    Liszt_Consolation_No.5.mp3
    Massanet_Meditation_From_Thais.mp3
    Mendelssohn_Wedding_March.mp3
    Mozart_Marriage_of_Figaro.mp3
    Rubinstein_Melody_in_F.mp3
    Saint-Saens_The_Swan.mp3
    Schubert_Moments_Musical.mp3
    Schubert_Serenade.mp3
    Schubert_Trout_Quintet.mp3
    Schumann_Pleading_Child_and_Perfect_Happiness.mp3
    Schumann_Traumerie.mp3
    Schumann_Warum.mp3
    Strauss_Blue_Danube.mp3
    Strauss_Die_Fledermaus_Overture.mp3
    Strauss_Pizzicato_Polka.mp3
    Strauss_Radetzky_March.mp3
    Strauss_Thunder_and_Lightning_Polka.mp3
    Suppe_Light_Calvary_Overture.mp3
    Tchaikovsky_Chanson_Triste.mp3
    Tchaikovsky_Dance_of_the_Swans.mp3
    Tchaikovsky_Scene_from_Swan_Lake.mp3
    Tchaikovsky_Waltz_from_Swan_Lake.mp3

  5. Justin

    Wow that’s totally sweet, I really wasn’t sure that anyone else beside me bought this when it came out and held onto it for so long. I just replaced mine a few months ago but was really sad to see that you couldn’t dump those classical songs with the software that came with it like you said. Wondering if you had any tips for someone without much programming knowledge as to how to get them (I have Windows 7 if that matters)? If it’s too much to ask, I understand. Your site is awesome, you seem like pretty much a genius. Thanks a lot and take care!

  6. Joe McKenzie

    I did a little more hacking on the zenrecover.py script. This version extracts *ALL* files from a Zen Xtra/Vision M disk, even files that were deleted or lost due to reformatting, provided that the files haven’t been overwritten with new data yet:
    https://gist.github.com/816115

Comments are closed.