Clip+ not recognized by XP SP3

When I plug my 4GB Clip+ into my ancient desktop running XP, I get the “USB device not recognized” error message. In the help guide, it says this means there is a problem with my device. However, I can plug it into my laptop running Vista and there are no issues. The problem is… all my music is on my desktop, and it would be a heck of a lot easier getting it to work with that than constantly transferring files. I have tried changing USB modes, using different ports and cables, and updating the firmware, all with the same result. Anybody have any insight? TIA

The Clip+ won’t connect to the pc with the usb mode on the player set to MSC? Are you connecting it directly to a rear usb port(without using a hub)? What other usb devices are you using? Perhaps you should try disconnecting as many of them as you can before connecting the player. To get the player to connect in MTP mode, you may need to install one of the later versions of Windows media player that is compatible with Windows XP.

Why not just get a 16GB or 32GB micro SDHC card with a card reader and transfer the music from your old pc that way? You could probably get a 16GB microSDHC card with a usb card reader for around $11.

Upon further review, I just needed to use one of my rear ports to connect it. I can now connect in MSC mode, but MTP mode will not work. It is asking to find the drivers for “MTP device”, which fails every time. While not a huge problem, the music I have on it already was put on in MTP mode. Any suggestions for this issue? 

P.S. - I have WMP 11, so that’s not the problem. Thanks for the quick reply.

Sometimes Windows glitches up with drivers.  You can try to fix this by going into XP’s Device Manager (under Control Panel/System) and see if the Clip is listed under the USB section; if so, uninstall it and then reattach the Clip, which will cause Windows to re-install the driver.

After upgrading to SP3, quite often Windows Media Player needs to be reinstalled  to have the MTP driver work properly. I had this same problem. Instead of reinstalling WMP though, I just formatted my players(deleting all the songs on the players) and transferred the songs to them in MSC mode since they are all MP3 files. Those who have protected files will need to use MTP mode though to transfer them.