Once and Still a Techie Weblog

Getting my Creative Zen Stone Plus mounted on the Eee PC

Thanks to this source, I was able to figure out how to get my Creative Zen Stone Plus to work with Xandros on my Eee PC.

When you connect the ZEN it will be detected as “ZEN Stone Plus”. In order to get Amarok (1.4.3 in my case) to detect it you will need to mount it first.

Update: If you’ve upgraded ‘usbstorageapplet’ (mine is currently version 1.1.69-1), Xandros will automatically assign a drive letter for any USB or SD card device you connect to the system and automatically mount it. So you can access the player using File Manager and copy files to or from the player without having to go through all the steps below. However, if you would like to transfer files using Amarok you will still have to edit /etc/fstab.

Here are the steps to get amarok to see your player if you’ve upgraded ‘usbstorageapplet’:

1.) Confirm device name in a console: Type Ctrl+Alt+T to open a console and type ‘df -h’ at the prompt.

/home/user> df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 1.4G 1.3G 106M 93% /
/dev/sda1 1.4G 1.3G 106M 93% /
unionfs 1.4G 1.3G 106M 93% /
tmpfs 443M 20K 443M 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 128M 108K 128M 1% /tmp
/dev/sdb1 1.9G 1.9G 57M 98% /media/D:
/dev/sdc1 112G 81G 31G 73% /media/E:
/dev/sdd1 1.9G 1.8G 78M 96% /media/F:

The output tells me my Creative Zen Stone’s device name is ‘/dev/sdd1′ and it is mounted as ‘/media/F:’.

2.) edit /etc/fstab: Type ’sudo kwrite /etc/fstab &’

3.) Add the following text to fstab and make sure to add another line after it by pressing enter. Just edit the line to reflect the correct device name and what your device is mounted as:

/dev/sdd1 /media/F: vfat noatime,auto,users,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=007 0 0

4.) Save the /etc/fstab file and close. Then follow steps 10-13 below to configure your device for amarok, make sure to take note of the correct device name (e.g. /dev/sdd1) for your device.

Here’s how to do it in Advanced Desktop mode if you haven’t upgraded to the latest ‘usbstorageapplet’:

1. After connecting the ZEN, determine the device name for it:

a.) open a console (CTRL+ALT+T)

b.) type “sudo fdisk -l”

c.) Here’s what I see:

Disk /dev/sda: 4001 MB, 4001292288 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 1 300 2409718+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 301 484 1477980 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 485 485 8032+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4 486 486 8032+ ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

Disk /dev/sdb: 2007 MB, 2007498752 bytes 29 heads, 28 sectors/track, 4828 cylinders Units = cylinders of 812 * 512 = 415744 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sdb1 1 4829 1960320+ 6 FAT16 Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdc: 1974 MB, 1974730752 bytes 243 heads, 62 sectors/track, 64 cylinders Units = cylinders of 15066 * 2048 = 30855168 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sdc1 * 1 64 1928324 b W95 FAT32 Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?): phys=(0, 0, 62) logical=(0, 1, 1)

Based on the above output my ZEN is detected as /dev/sdc1. sdb1 would be the 2GB SD card in my card reader. Of course sda would be the main SSD.

2. open /etc/fstab using a text editor like kwrite:

at the prompt type “sudo kwrite /etc/fstab &”. Replace kwrite with any text editor you’re comfortable with.

3. Add the following line to fstab and save the file:

/dev/sdc1 /media/ZENStonePlus vfat noatime,auto,users,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=007 0 0

4. Open the Admistrator File Manager at Applications->System->Administrator Tools

5. Navigate to All File Systems and open “/”:

6. Then open the folder “media”:

7. That’s where you should find the folder “ZEN Stone Plus”.

8. Rename “ZEN Stone Plus” to “ZENStonePlus” by clicking the folder then pressing Function key F2.:

9. Return to the console and mount sdc1:

type ’sudo mount /dev/sdc1′ or ’sudo mount -a’ (to mount all partitions in fstab which works too)

10. Open amarok and go to “Settings->Configure Music Manager”

11. Scroll down the left pane and select “Media Devices”:

12.) To the right of the detected Media Device “sdc1″ change the plugin to “Generic Audio Player”:

13.) Click Ok. On the main amarok screen click the Media Device tab and Connect to the Generic Audio Player at /dev/sdc1:

To start transferring files, simply select a song or set of songs and drag it into the transfer queue. Take note that if you were to remove the ZEN Stone Plus and reconnect it without rebooting the Eee the ZEN may no longer be detected as sdc1. It might change to sdd1.

To make sure there aren’t any problems what I usually do is reboot the Eee before connecting the ZEN to make sure it is always /dev/sdc1. The next time you connect the ZEN there will be no need to reedit fstab or rename ZEN Stone Plus. Simply mount the ZEN in a console using “sudo mount /dev/sdc1″or “sudo mount -a”.

Hope this helps stop some head scratching out there.