Unbricking your Sansa Clip

My problem was because of my own stupidity, but I did manage to get some good out of the experience and thought I’d share it here.

Since the Clip only works with PCs, I wondered what would happen if I plugged it into a Mac.  Obviously, there were some read/write issues and in the Mac’s attempts to make some sense of the data on the Clip, it did some weird things to the directory.  It also bricked my Clip.  When I would turn it on, the welcome screen would remain displayed.  I plugged it into a PC, and though it would connect with the PC it couldn’t fix itself or be recognized as an external device.

I called the customer service number a couple of times, and got many responses, from “mail it in to get it returned” to “wait for the firmware update coming out”.

Someone there told me to do this with the frozen Clip, and it worked like a charm:

Before plugging it into a PC, put the Clip on “hold”, and press and hold the main select button.  Then plug it into the PC.  It’s an awkward motion but it finally got the device to be recognized by the PC.

Then, right click on the device under My Computer and format it.

The funny thing was, I lost all my loaded songs but my settings remained the same.  I didn’t have to go back and reconfigure my equalizer, and the other settings were in tact as well.  I can only guess that wiping the corrupted database made the firmware right itself.

Anyway, I hope this little trick can help others who receive similar problems, whether they be unfortunate or self-inflicted.

interesting that they told you to mail it in, some people on the anythingbutipod forums had a similar problem and called and was informed of that trick

Yes, I called their tech support 3 or 4 times, and I received very different advice from each call.  So I suppose you best be careful when you call them up.  It may take a couple of calls before you get the help you’re looking for.

kashtel_js wrote:

 

Since the Clip only works with PCs, I wondered what would happen if I plugged it into a Mac.  Obviously, there were some read/write issues and in the Mac’s attempts to make some sense of the data on the Clip, it did some weird things to the directory.  It also bricked my Clip. 

the sansa clip is actually an auto detect device. this means that it is a MTP (PC only) device however if the MTP device drivers are not detected the clip will default to MSC. MSC devices are compatible with MAC. what most likely happened is itunes automatically synced some incompatible files to the Clip which caused the device to freeze.

kashtel_js wrote:

 

Then, right click on the device under My Computer and format it.

 

The funny thing was, I lost all my loaded songs but my settings remained the same. 

 

That is actually the function of “format” there are also warning messages that state all data will be lost. Funny thing is noone told you that formatting will erase all the data stored on the device.

so how do u onlock it then when u tried using the PC option and that didn’t work…is there a way to unlock it with the mac?

unlock it?

Thank YOU!!!  Especially to kashtel_js.  It worked.  I was in the same situation that you described in your post.  So I followed your advice.  I pushed the left button down to HOLD while I held down the center button.  As I held those buttons, I plugged in the USB cord and then plugged the USB into the computer.  When my Clip was recognized, I right clicked on My Computer and then re-formatted the Clip.  Then I downloaded the firmware update.  Sheesh, I am so pleased that it worked.  I will admit that this whole process took me about 3 times.  The first two times I tried to download the firmware update but it got stuck in the process.  That is when I decided that I should really try to first reformat the thing prior to downloading the firmware update. Now I will go home (I am on my cousin’s PC) and download some songs --mp3s-- using my Mac.  We’ll see how that works out.  But so far, so good.  Thank you to this forum because I got my mom’s brand new Clip now working.

Message Edited by kandthewaves on 12-30-2007 02:19 PM

Stupid me for simply plugging it into our Mac for an uninterrupted charge, but I too suffered the consequences!  Thanks for your guidance as it worked!