Hi I have experienced a similar start up problem on my 6GB e270 SanDisk from the woot.
It was fine last week but after transferring the songs from my workstation Windows 7, I shut it down and went home. I started to open the e270 and got caught in a loop of seeing SanDisk logo against the black background, then white board, before repeating itself.
Did the obligatory pressing the power/menu button, same result.
Did the left Record button + Power/Menu button…turned it off.
Tried to connect the bugger to my computers at home and at work, and the computers don’t recognize the USB connection at all.
There is no sign of communciation between the e270 and any computer.
Help…or tell me, is it really “dead”?