Clip Guide for the Mac

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

This is how to use the Clip on the Mac, I got tired of going to my daughters house to either upgrade the firmware or unfreeze the Clip. Everything should work as stated, all of the directions have been performed with no problems on a Powerbook G4, running OSX 10.4.11.

The first thing a Mac user has to do is put the Clip in MSC mode. I have had three Clips and all have locked up in the MTP mode. So lets put the Clip in the MSC mode.

  1. Scroll down to Setting from the Main Menu. Select

  2. Scroll down to USB Mode. Select

  3. Select MSC, you will see a checkmark beside your selected mode.

When your Clip freezes up.

  1. If you Clip freezes up, press the on/off switch up and hold for for 10-20 seconds. The Clip will turn off, now turn it on. If it powers on and plays your done. BUT if it freezes with the welcome screen go to step 2.

  2. The first thing we want to try is to replace the firmware. You need to download the latest firmware. So go to this address, http://mp3support.sandisk.com/firmware/clip/clip01.01.20a.zip.This link is for the latest version of the firmware and it will change as newer versions come out, you can find the latest version of the firmware on the Sansa Clip forum. You will be downloading a zip file but Stuffit Expander will expand it to a .bin file. You will now have a file called m300a.bin, Which is the firmware for the Americas.

  3. Redo Step 1 then put your Clip on Hold, you do this by pushing the on/off switch down, you will a red strip in on/off switch slot. Now connect the Clip to your Mac while holding down the select button, this mounts the Clip in the MSC mode. You should see  SANSA CLIP mounted on your desktop. If it doesn’t, keep trying.

  4. Now drag the m300a.bin file to the SANSA CLIP icon on the desktop. This will place the file in the root directory. Drag the SANSA CLIP  icon to the trash which will unmount it. Your Clip should display “firmware upgrade in progress”, then a finished display. If the clip locks up again on startup proceed to step 5.

  5. Now we are going to save your music, reformat the Clip, and reinstall the firmware.

5a. Perform step 1 and 3 above

5b. If you have any music you want to save double-click the Clip icon. You will see the folders with your music, podcasts etc, Option-click those folders you want to save and drag them to the desktop.

5c.Now open the Disk Utility application located in your Utilities folder. In the left hand you will see SANSA CLIP. Highlight it and select the erase tab. In the Volume Format selection you should see “MS-DOS File System (Fat 16)” if not select it from the drop down menu. Leave the name SANSA CLIP and erase the volume. Quit Disk Utility

5d. Perform step 4 above. It should now startup with no problems. 

5e. Put the Clip in the MSC mode, and while your at it you might want to reformat using the Format command from your Clip Settings menu. Connect the Clip to your Mac, drag the folders you saved in step 5b on the Clip icon, The Finder will ask if you want to replace the files, click OK.

These steps will also replace new firmware as it becomes available.

I hope that this helps the Mac user, the Clip is a great mp3 player and Mac users really don’t need access to a PC to use it.

2

It’s honestly better if you *don’t* use a “mac” as comparable PCs cost a lot less and offer a lot more functionality, all of those problems you went through could have been avoided with a PC.

4

Spoken like a true PC-er, Aircraft. No harm no foul if you’re against Mac… I was for the longest. Then I went out on a limb and bought one. Couldn’t be more satisfied or happier. I don’t mind a little extra work to make a $40 mp3 player work, when in return I have a virtually uncrashable, virus-free operating system. Seems like a **bleep** good deal to me. Spend a few extra dollars out of the gate, and save significant money down the line… For example, Norton Antivirus costs approximately $60 a year… Say five years, you’re looking at $300. Spend the extra $300 on PC price, get a mac- no worries on viruses, EVER! Makes sense to me!

5

There’s plenty of viruses for Macs, and it’s not “virtually crash proof” because we use Macs at our college and the **bleep** things suffer more problems than the XP SP2 systems do. And pardon me if I sound offensive but only fools pay for virus protection, try AVG Free - it won’t cost you anything and it gives you the same protection that Norton and other AV software does.

Here’s a great quote on the subject:

I’ve been using my PC for over 2 years now and I have yet to find a *single* virus. The only way people get viruses on their computer is sheer stupidity. Porn sites with downloadable plugins, e-mails that clearly shouldn’t be open, and the list goes on. You only get a virus on a PC if you don’t know jack, so unless you’re ready to claim that you don’t know anything about computers, please don’t lift up Apple on a holy pedestool. Try not to take this the wrong way. I’m no

Macs have their place, and as far as performance and compatibility goes, that place is far under any PC I can build at the same price.

You want to be completely free of any chance of getting a virus? Install a linux distro and call it a day. You’ll save hundreds of dollars in the process, and you’ll be getting the same level of compatibility. Oh yeah, and when your warranty expires, you can fix it yourself instead of paying them top dollar to do it for you.

We can go on all day about the Mac vs. PC war, but I’ll summarize the bottom line, having worked with both:

PCs are always more compatible with software than Macs are.

Macs are generally easier to use and have a smaller learning curve than PCs do.

Price for performance, PCs will always come on top. A mac will never be faster than a PC at the same price point. I invite you to find me an exception to that rule.

Macs aren’t the holy grail of video, audio, and image editing. Just because its more expensive, doesn’t mean its better. The only reason people love them for video editing is because they use a Mac-only application called Final Cut Pro, which from what I hear, is better than Premiere or Vegas. That’s where the superiority ends.

Macs are not always higher quality. Often enough, they’re lower quality. When first released, their operating system is as buggy and troublesome as Windows is when it is first released.

You can’t game on a Mac. Period. (unless you love Tetris and online flash games).

Macs are not more stable than PCs. I’ve crashed macs before.

Apple’s marketing team is better than any other in the industry. That’s why you have the impression that they’re better. Not because they are.

I invite you to find a clear contradiction to any of the above statements I’ve made. Unless you have money to waste, buy a PC and a good antivirus program, and use common sense to stay away from trouble when you’re online. The boogie man will not come out of the closet randomly and leave you a virus to cry over in the morning. If you do get a virus on a PC, the only one to blame is you. Neither me nor my girlfriend, nor my girlfriend’s dad, or her mom, nor my mom, or dad, or sister (who each have their own laptop), or even my 13 year old brother (who has his own dual core PC) has EVER had a virus on their PC. I touch 10-15 different computers each day at work, and I haven’t yet had a single one come in with a virus in the near 4 months I’ve been working there.

6

great points, and I agree with them all. I used to work with macs and I’ve crashed them by sheerly moving at the speed I do with PCs. I’m not saying PC’s don’t crash, but man, when macs crash, they CRASH.

And yes AVG is a great great GREAT antivirus program, but most importantly, if you know what you’re doing, aware of what you’re doing and detailed about what you do, you can prevent 99% of all problems that occur. I’ve NEVER used windows update for anything, and my computers and laptops are more clean than other’s who’ve depended on it, download loads of adware removal tools, and spyware cleaners, etc, etc and more etc. I agree that most computer problems start with stupidity. “it just stopped working” well . . .you’ll never fix it if you don’t know HOW, WHEN and WHY it stopped working. I guess Mac could be more full-proof against this . . . which brings up an interesting view:

Advanced users can mess up, crash, freeze, etc, Macs so easily. . . . yet use PCs with such ease

Beginner users can mess up, crash, freeze, etc, PCs so easily. . . yet use Macs with such ease

and simply put. . . most creative users of the Mac, are not advanced users. I didn’t say all, I said most. I’ve worked in the creative field, with graphic designers, animators, etc, and most of them know how to do do their work, but they aren’t advanced computer users who can trouble-shoot or figure out why their comps don’t work. they know how to download. . .and well . .you know what that leads to if you don’t know what your downloading.

and Heck I’m almost sure most developers and engineers that work at Mac, probably have a PC at home. that’s something to ponder about!

Message Edited by thoma on 05-29-2008 03:11 PM

Message Edited by thoma on 05-29-2008 03:12 PM

7

I could not disagree more with the previous post.

I am a electronics engineer and built my first computer from a kit  in 1978 (yes you had to solder all the parts to the Motherboard, memory board (16K), etc.)

I used to build PCs and I had a number of them for a few years.

They were all a total pain in the ass.

Hardware vender says, reinstall the operating system, Operating system vender (Windows) says change the hardware/install new drivers.

Total bull**bleep** runaround!

Never reliable, constant work interruptions to deal with crashes, data lost, hardware and or sofware not working, requiring hours/days to sort out, often without sucess.

Constantly upgrading software/hardware in costly/futile effort to get Windows to behave.

I finally got fed up, gave the PC to an old friend with the warning to never ask me for tech help with it.

(I still get calls all the time from my dad asking me to help him sort out many problem with his PC)

2001 I purchased my first Mac laptop and desktop computers. They worked so well (still do), I did not feel the desire to upgrade until last year.

Day and night difference.

I could never, in good conscience, recommend a PC to someone I like.

Mac costs a little more up front but saves a lot more money, time and frustration in the long run.

8

I use a new clip with 2 macs (one an old powermac) without any of the special steps posted here or elsewhere about “modes” or “usb”… just the defaults work fine. Actually it seems more compatible than my apple ipod, which gets really fussy when unplugged at the wrong time or has a cat fight with that cursed itunes.

The one exception is I update firmware using a crippled old Windows PC so I can use the autoupdate program, but that will probably bite me because that machine dies every few minutes due to an internal power problem.