Auto Detect or MSC?

Just got a Clip 2GB a few days ago, plugged it into the USB to charge it for the first time,then clicked on My Computer where I saw an icon which is a picture of the Clip; next I right clicked on the icon and clicked on Properties, where it shows the version of firmware and the battery & how much charge it has. After it charged to 100%, I unplugged it, turned it on and was scrolling through the settings. Under the USB settings, it was on Auto Detect, so I switched it to MSC ( I think I read on the forum somewhere MSC was fine if you just wanted to drag & drop your files) When I plug it into the USB while in the MSC mode, and click on My Computer, the icon does not show the clip, but rather an icon of a drive, listed under Devices With Removable Storage. Also, while in MSC I can open the Music folder and see all the songs I have loaded on it; but switch it back to Auto Detect and open the Music folder none of the songs show up. I guess none of this is a big deal; I just like charging it in the Auto Detect mode so I can see the progress of the battery charging, and then I will switch it back to MSC when it’s done. So i guess what I was wondering is, what is actually the difference between Auto Detect and MSC and does it matter which one I use? I hope my explanation isn’t too confusing and hopefully someone knows the answer to this.

This is my very first MP3 player, so I really don’t know anything about them; but so far I love this one. It has great sound and is really easy to use.

You can see the battery level in MSC mode too. Just watch the battery animation on the Clip’s display. It always starts from the charging point, not necesarrily from 0. In Auto Mode you player connected in MTP mode because of Windows Media. And you can’t see the files stored in MTP mode while in MSC and viceversa.

Autodetect will “default” to MTP mode.  Which is fine if you only use computers that can support MTP mode.  Otherwise, autodetect will sometimes use MTP mode and sometimes MSC mode.  And there’s no issue with that, except that files transferred in MTP mode only show when connected in MTP mode; and likewise as to MSC mode.  That may not be an issue for you.

Thanks to both of you for explaining it; that was just what I wanted to know. I didn’t think it was a problem, was mostly just curious why it worked like that.