Followed all the steps, though installing Player recovery device class took me hours… All the hints are for x32 systems, it wasn’t so nice and easy for x64 Finding the driver itself was a real pain, but in the end it worked, which already made me feel that everything is fixed… And yeah, surprise.
Player recovery device class installed, I turned on the Sansa Updater. Everything I saw is: ‘No updatable Sansa product has been recognized. Plug in your device and wait for more instructions.’ What now?
I’m using only SansaExpressUpdater.exe file directly, don’t have any updater in the tray (as this exe is not installing anything in my system).
The other thing is that it’s gonna be real hard with finding x32 system anywhere around and I’m fighting with that small bloody thing for months already, for a week also with assistance from Technical Support. Still nothing changes, and tbh I’m not really looking forward to going through the Player recovery thing on another PC again
I suspect that the Sansa Updater simply doesn’t recognize the device when it’s mounted with the 64-bit driver. I guess we’re lucky that it even works with the 32-bit Player Recovery Class driver.
I don’t know what else you could try. I think the firmware file is encrypted somehow, so even if you found an updater for another player, it probably wouldn’t work.
I would suggest finding a 32-bit system; even a public Internet terminal. If the PC can automatically get the PRC driver from the Internet, the whole process should only take a few minutes.
You know, it’s not that easy. The Updater ‘worked’ for me once, some time ago. As I had problems with the player (disappeared in the system, stopped turning on etc. - and it wasn’t working on any of the systems, whatever it was), I thought that maybe update will solve it. Downloaded it, turned it on, it started working, and then I saw a msg that ‘driver is in MTP mode, so can’t be updated, please change to MSC’ or sth like that. So at that time it worked, and recognized the player, the problem is just now, after next month of fighting with drivers
If the player still communicates with your PC when you connect it normally (not in recovery mode), you may still be able to use the updater. See this post for instructions on how to switch to MSC mode.
When you connect the player in recovery mode, it is essentially a different USB device that is connected in neither MTP nor MSC mode. When I debricked my device, it did not take much time once I had it connected in recovery mode. Of course, many other people have complained of all kinds of difficulty, so I can’t say for sure that your experience will be quick and painless if you find a 32-bit system. However, if your device is actually disabled, I think it is certainly worth trying.
Same boat as you, Natally. I’ve used this procedure or something similar with success, a long time ago. Other than that, it has pretty much worked great. After several other problems which reared their head since I synced with a 64-bit Vista system, it decided to brick randomly. I tried all the methods in this thread in and then out of order to no avail; the “Player Recovery Class” seemed to install, but Sansa Updater wouldn’t see it, and in the end all I managed to get done was keep my system from recognizing anything plugged in at all. Finally I started messing with drivers and got the system to lock up as well. So I’m typing from the Ubuntu partition of my box right now, which will probably be the only partition on there after this weekend, given this problem and several others Vista’s given me.
I tried on my roomate’s 32-bit system. It installed again and Sansa updater told me to switch to MSC mode, but that was a pretty tall order considering my GUI at that moment was the jumbled 2-D barcode looking thing. I tried unplugging it, hoping maybe that I’d be able to at least switch now or something but it just shut off again like usual. So I tried again and now the updater gave me an Error # 1003. Not sure what it means so any help and advice would be appreciated, but at this point I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I’ll be shopping for a new player soon.
Switching between MTP and MSC mode is done on the computer, not the player. (See this post.) However, if you get the strange blue object, then you need to connect in recovery mode , which is a third connection mode specifically intended for reflashing the firmware.
To connect in recovery mode, hold down the Volume Down (-) button while connecting the player to your computer. The player should be recognized as a totally different USB device, called an STMP3600 Player Recovery Class. From there, you can run Sansa Updater.
It connects in recovery mode, it just isn’t recognized by the updater. Ever. I can at least see it in Device Manager now, though - is there a way I can force the firmware to flash without using the updater?
If I try to connect it not in recovery mode, Vista tries to install MTP drivers and gives an error message in the updater rather than just not recognizing it.
Same here - in recovery mode I have ‘recovery class’ in Device Manager. In ‘normal’ mode it’s listed twice as Sansa Express in the Drives and USB Mass Storage in USB controllers… So seems it is in MSC mode already (don’t ask me how and why ;)) Still, whatever mode the player is connected in, I have the same error message from the updater. And I can’t do anything with the player, either.
With each of these packages, you don’t have to install anything that goes into your system tray. You can just extract the archive and then run the SansaExpressUpdater.exe file. This may overcome the problem of the system tray utility not recognizing PRC devices.
If this doesn’t work, I would suggest trying it on several different computers. If it still doesn’t work, then I don’t know what else you could try. Your device might be physically defective. In this case, return it to the store (if you still can) or contact SanDisk for warranty support.
Downloading this: http://rapidshare.de/files/40838745/Sansa\_Express\_01.01.12a.rar.html and turning SansaExpressUpdater.exe file while player was in recovery mode solved everything, finally I was fighting with this small nasty thing for weeks, a guy from Technical Support gave up, I think, and I just had to make it working, as it was a gift to my bf
csents, try the same, maybe you’ll be so lucky, too
Yep, all good here too. I think it was the previous version of the updater (which installed 01.01.05) or something that finally got it going. I’m not completely sure because my roommate came back in while I was trying to get it to work again. I pretty much literally turned around and he had it working. Win. But I do think he had a different version of the updater up, and when it did its thing the 1.1.12 version was able to kick in and recognize it.
Thanks Thomas for all your help. I really appreciate it even if the tone of some of my contents suggests otherwise - I was getting pretty angry at the player there for a while.
I’m glad you both got your players working. Hopefully they keep working without too many problems.
Mine has been pretty good. Ever since first debricking it 11 months ago, I’ve never had to do so again. It has locked up a few times and required a soft-reset (Select + Volume Up), but it is generally quite usable.
i haven’t read through the 9 pages of posts and doubt anybody will get to the end to read this one, but i too found that this method worked. i’m just posting to make something clear. i had the same problem that the initial person that suggested the german driver site had, namely that windows wouldn’t read the recovery device. the reason it wouldn’t read the recovery device is that sandisk was bonehead enough to forget to package the bloody inf with the driver. so, what happens is windows says “yup, you gots yourself a driver and i know what this driver is called and i even know how it works but you didn’t tell me how to install that driver to the registry. so, how do i install it? i don’t know. you’re missing the information.”. what the german driver site has in it’s download are the instructions that windows needs to install the driver in the form of the inf file. so, you don’t actually have to install that driver…in fact i’d suggest you don’t. just point windows to the inf file when it comes up and asks you what to do with a player recovery class.
I have a SanDisk sansa 1G, and every time i try to connect it to my computer it only says connected den it restarts. and go back to the same thing. but on my computer nothing happens.
OK. I got nothing. I tried the 5 step program [Thomas 11/13/08 09:59PM] and never got the Express to do anything. No music, no STMP3600, no thumbdrive, nothing on the display. I have this player for about 3 months, no real problems. My story goes this way…
I was sync’ing using Media Player, finished, shutdown laptop. Looked at my Express, it was reading. I didn’t know what to do. Later (overnight), I looked up the Hardware Reset ( Select and VolumeUp(+) at the same time) and it reset. That was good. I plugged it in a USB (laptop), saw it charging and went about my day. When I came back it was dead. No startup, no reset, no beastie eating everything. So I tried #2 (While holding down the VolumeDown(-) button, connect the device to your computer. You may have to wait a few seconds before releasing the button.). Nothing. Tried different USB’s, different computers, nada.
So shall I call it toast?
The threads here seem discouraging. Is there anything more I can do before I defect to an iPod?
As a last ditch effort I shutdown and rebooted my desktop. Leaving the “Safely Remove Hardware” up, I tried the Volume(-) USB plug in a bunch more times. Sometimes I could see the Sansa Experess appear and sometimes I saw nothing but heard the new device chime.
When the Sansa Experess appeared, it would come and go at about 2 second intervals.
I was able to reprogram the firmware when I saw nothing in the “Safely Remove Hardware” but heard the new device chime. After performing the firmware (05a) reprogramming 4 or 5 times, it finally stuck.
My Express is alive and charging. I’ll find out if it works later today.
Thanks for the reply, it caused me to keep trying and now it has been “debricked.”
Finding the driver itself was a real pain, but in the end it worked, which already made me feel that everything is fixed… And yeah, surprise.
