How do I delete the songs that came on my Sansa Fuze?

My Sansa Fuze came with 19 songs on it that I want to delete but I don’t know how.  When I plug my Sansa Fuze into my computer the songs do not appear on my computer but they are on the device when I use it.  They are not listed in the “Music” folder or any folder when I manage the device on my computer.  Can anyone tell me how to remove these unwanted songs?

If you haven’t put any other music/photos/videos etc.  on the Fuze, or you have copies that you are willing to transfer again, the easiest way to get rid of those songs is to Format the Fuze which erases all content (but leaves its built-in software untouched). Settings/System Settings/Format.

Or if you have a friend with a recent Windows computer, you can see the songs and delete them yourself.

Why can’t you see those songs? It’s a long story, but a pretty simple one.

The Fuze has two USB modes, MSC and MTP (Settings/System Settings/USB Mode).They’re two different pipelines into the Fuze, and your computer can only read one at a time. (The Fuze sees everything regardless of mode.)

The sample songs were transferred in MTP mode. But your computer is connecting via MSC–my preferred mode–so it can’t see them.

MSC  treats the Fuze like a generic flash drive. You can drag and drop manually, or if you want you can use Winamp or Media Monkey to sync things.

MTP lets the Fuze be controlled–sync, etc.–by Windows Media Player 10 or above. It also lets WMP transmit the hidden-from-the-user DRM (Digital Rights Muck) codes for things like copy-protected songs and audiobooks that expire. You’re probably not using those.

The idea was to have the equivalent of iTunes/iPod coordination for the majority of users–but also to have the increased freedom and control of MSC if a user wanted to switch it. Non-Windows users, on Mac or Linux, end up on MSC as well.  The only real need for MTP mode is for DRM files.

On a computer that has Windows Meda Player 10 or above, the Fuze’s Auto Detect mode (the third choice in Settings/System Settings/USB Mode)–which is what the Fuze is using unless you have changed it–will connect in MTP mode and those songs will be visible and deletable. So that’s why it might be simplest to use a friend’s Windows PC–Vista, Windows 7, etc.

The original Windows XP came with Windows Media Player 9–too old a version for MTP. If you are on XP you could update WMP (via support.microsoft.com) to dump those songs. Then you should switch back to MSC (not Auto Detect) and do whatever you were doing previously  to transfer your music., so you’ll have all your songs visible to you.

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Problem fixed, I thank you very much.  

There are also sample videos that you may not want as well, and maybe a couple of sample podcasts (it’s been a while so I can’t remember for sure). All these should be visible and deletable while connected in MTP mode. Take a peek inside the Videos, Recordings, Podcasts and Audiobooks folders. You can free up a little extra memory by deleting those you don’t want.