[General Questions and Answers] GameX2:
Thank you for that;

I've tried your update.zip, strange as it's still not working. In that case, no progress bar shows up, like last time (It's like if the ZIP wasn't signed at all?):

-- Install from sdcard --
Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifiying update package...
E: signature verification failed
Installation aborted.

For info, when I've tried signing the ZIP myself using different tools such as sign-apk.jar and Sign-Em, I got a sightly different message along with a progress bar, shown in my last message.

That file is from the vendor, sort of, the firmware update is provided as an APK file. I've tried using that APK to upgrade the version, which is on 2.00.23 and there is a final release, 2.00.38, which brings almost nothing new, but being able to upgrade would reflash the original kernel and fix all these issues in fact... But when I try launch the APK, it's just not working, I get "The installer is not intended for your device" (Is that a joke ???)

Like this:

Huh. No clue, I have unrooted the device, nothing. I even decompiled the APK file with APKTools to see which conditions the APK check. Not sure, I'm not a programmor, but I saw a reference of build.prop, so I've restored the original build.prop file from the official firmware, still nothing.

Here's where you can download the 2 official firmwares. So they definitely are from the vendor.

http://support.creative.com/Product...MP3+Players&prodID=20275&prodName=ZEN+Touch+2

Regarding the update.zip file, that's also why I said "sort of", because no update.zip file is provided, it's an APK file. Instead, I've followed the instructions from this thread:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showpost.php?p=610226&postcount=36

So this is what the content of the official APK file look like when you extract it with 7-Zip:

The instructions above said to rename the 70,6MB file "data" to "update.zip" and place it on the SD card, and "randomly" a notification should appear, mentionning "Firmware upgrade found". No luck, no notification.

But still... That "data" file has the structure of an official update.zip file... I'm almost certainly sure that what the APK file does, it just rename the huge "data" file as "update.zip", and then just reboot into Stock Recovery and flash, huh?

So it's technically a trick, renaming the "data" file as "update.zip", but it still remains from the official firmware, yeah? How weird. I still don't understand that "Signature verification failed", then...

Doesn't make any sense.

There are no public infos on that bootloader anywhere. I had to e-mail the vendor, Creative, which told me the bootloader was locked (Is that even true? Ha, I guess so, but no way for me to verify the statement).

If only I had Fastboot, I could have tried "fastboot oem-unlock" on day one, but it doesn't appear to have Fastboot at all, or it's not accessible (To my knowledge, it could be hidden, but I really have no idea. Just thinking of my LG P500, which you can't access Fastboot the normal way, unless you soft-brick, or you manually enable it with a special software. Done that, on LG P500).

The commmand adb reboot bootloader doesn't work, neither reboot bootloader, with SU rights from Terminal Emulator. It just reboot the system normally. Also tried "adb reboot-bootloader", no luck. Hey, even "adb reboot recovery" just reboot the system normally, without accessing Recovery 3e.

In fact, I believe it just ignores the other arguments somehow. I can type rubbish like this, in Terminal Emulator:

$ su
# reboot jriogjrog

...Instead of popping an error, it still reboot normally. Huh.

I also have a USB-jig, but I always thought it was intended for Samsung only, and besides, my Jig is a microUSB, while the ZEN Touch 2 has miniUSB, just doens't fit in the port.

There seems to be nothing, tried every hardware key-combos out there, no way to reach bootloader-level, no Download Mode, no Emergency Mode, no Fastboot... Only hardware key-combo is "Home+Power", which access Recovery Mode, that's all.

This is the partition table. From what I see, I strongly believe /Recovery and /Boot are united as one single partition. Obviously, since it's an entertainment device but not a phone, it has no modem/baseband partition. Pretty simple. Appears to use non-standard NAND partitioning (Wow). With an MS-DOS partition table (GPT was new in 2010, isn't it?), so the Block 3 is just an extended partition.

BUT, from what I see, Block 4 start at 158MB, so there would be 158MB of unused space at the start of the NAND ???? Or that part of the bootloader in any way (158MB for the bootloader, no way?) ? Or maybe Creative are just dumb XD Or this could be some sort of Master-Boot-Record just like on computers like GNU-GRUB, but I've never heard of that on Android, we refer to simply a /Boot partition.. Which I still believe /Boot and /Recovery partitions are combined.

I've heard of JTAG, the process of connecting the motherboard to a JTAG box, and reflashing the bootloader that way - Didn't knew this could be used to flash the whole system. Thought you would flash just the Bootloader and restore the rest with Odin, for instance.

A bit off-topic, but to use JTAG, do you have to have a special bootloader file, or can you flash the bootloader using, for example, the u-boot-no-padding.bin file we have here?

Do the device (especially older devices like this one) requires special connections, or connectors, so if the connectors don't exist, no way to JTAG? Oh well, that's not the main topic anyway, just curious, you really seem to know your stuff.

Thank you very much