Hello everyone! This is my first post and I haven’t had the chance to see if this question was already brought up.I recently bought an 8gb Fuze,but the installation cd provided is too small to work in my older computer(Dell Optiplex 110)I’m running winXP and I didn’t know if there was any other way to get my computer to recognize my player.I’m so ready to drop some songs on my Fuze,but don’t want to make a major mistake.I’m still rather inexperienced on pc’s.Any help in this matter will greatly appreciated.
If you set the player to MSC mode and then just plug it in it will be recognized as a drive… given a letter etc and you can drag and drop - no need for the CD - I haven’t even looked at it - I think it has the manual and the s/w for converting videos on it - but all that can be downloaded…
good luck and welcome
All the CD has on it (or at least, all mine had on it) was the manual in PDF, and a link to an internet site to download the converter. You can get both from sansa.com.
@pelago wrote:
All the CD has on it (or at least, all mine had on it) was the manual in PDF, and a link to an internet site to download the converter. You can get both from sansa.com.
They’re both here too and probably easier to find than on the Sansa site. I think the mini-CD also has the Rhapsody Free 30-day offer on it, too.
Agreed, you don’t need it. Unless you really need another coaster for your beer. In which case I’ll send you mine; it’s too cold for beer now anyway! 
Now where did I put those wee beasties?
Here’s what’s on the CD:
There you go!
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Message Edited by neutron_bob on 12-17-2008 05:13 PM
Message Edited by neutron_bob on 06-28-2010 07:05 PM
Thank you so much for the informatin provided! It was a great help and very easy!
My pale ale is resting comfortably on the new coaster!Thanx for the suggestion!
Thanks Bob for all your help! I’m up and running now!!
Bob,
That installation cd worked great… the one that came with it did not work…
“finally” my fuze shows up on “MY COMPUTER”…
Now…
I have music that it says I put on the fuze but isn’t there… what happened?
I go to internal memory and it says it’s there… what the heck?
I’m a senior citizen so be gentle, lol
There are two issues that cause confusion with music loaded onto your device.
The first situation: Music shows up on the Sansa, but you cannot see it from Windows Explorer. This is really frustrating. The music plays, but where are the files? The most common situation seen is the sample music on the device. You can transfer music, but can’t see that group of songs.
The Sansa can communicate in one of two USB modes, MSC (Mass Storage Class) where it’s seen as a flash drive, or MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) where it’s seen as a portable device or media player. MTP mode is needed to transfer the hidden license data for secure wma files, like Rhapsody, Napster, Overdrive, and Audible; it’s an integrated part of Windows Media Player 10 and later. MTP is a virtual mode, much more complex than MSC, and it does many things in the background: song ratings, license data, album art, playlists…
Here’s the problem. The Sansa sees bofiles loaded in either mode, but your computer will not unless it’s looking in the same mode as the transfer. Thus, there’s a virtual “wall” between files transferred in either mode.
The second situation: Files transferred to the device can’t be found, or when they are, they’re listed as “unknown”. Here, I’m referring to the device itself. If we navigate to Album / Song for example, there are files that display as <Unknown>.
Here, we learn about the second characteristic of our Sansa: it navigates between Album / Artist / Song /Genre by using hidden “tags” embedded into the audio files. If you use a service like Napster or Rhapsody, you’re in MTP mode, and this tagging magically happens in the background. If you “rip” a CD (I don’t like that term, it’s terribly misleading), or transcribe the CD to wma or mp3 format using Windows Media Player, for example, watch it work on the screen:
You plop the CD into the computer CD tray, and open Windows Media Player. Simply click on the Rip tab at the top of the screen. (I’ll hold off on explaining the myriad of options in detail here.) As the little green bars appear while your tracks are transcribed from CD format to, say, MP3, watch the titles of the tracks change to the actual listings on the CD, then the CD title will appear, and after a few moments, the album art will replace the generic CD logo!
WiMP has pulled the album art, and track data from an online database. This information is called the ID3 tag, and it’s an integral part of the MP3 / WMA standard. This way, in theory, you can zip an MP3 file anywhere, and the vital data is part of the file. ID3 tags make life simple using your Sansa, as you can navigate by Genre to listen to your Jazz or Country albums, or go to Songs to find Singin’ In The Rain on demand, or Steely Dan’s Aja album by Artist or Album.
In WiMP10 / 11, all you need to is right click on any desired track or album, and select the Advanced Tag Editor to change this data if desired.
If the data is completely messed up, which will happen occasionally when the player locates say, a later release of the same CD, with tracks in a different order, right click on the album cover and select Find ALbum Info. Then, at the most basic level, it’s a simple matter of looking for the matching album art.
If you’re using the Rhapsody service, you can use the interface to “rip” CDs into your library as well, and the Rhapsody client includes a Tag Editor too.
If you choose to use an application like Media Monkey or Winamp, these also can edit the tag data for you.
No discussion of the ID3 tag could be complete without mentioning MP3Tag , my personal favorite for editing tag data, embedding art into the file, or extracting the art if needed. This option is a very powerful editing tool.
If you have any specific glitches or questions, this forum is replete with fellow Sansa enthusiasts that can help.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Great post Bob…
This should be a “sticky”…
yes, good post Bob…one other thing that I would like to mention…
If you need to edit/fix the information that WiMP pulls and uses from the online database, I would suggest to always set up WiMP to not automatically rip when a cd is inserted in the drive. I have found problems come up if you do the ripping and then tweak the files/tracks/folders after.
Look at the information, tweak it to your liking and THEN begin the rip…less trouble in the long run…
Indeed, as a new user gets the feel after a “rip or two”, one can then delve into the rip settings by clicking on the button “hidden” at the bottom of the Rip Tab.
Most important: Format and Bit Rate. One can choose betwen MP3 or Windows Media Audio (stay away from “pro” or “lossless” ), and Bit Rate. With the bit rate, you are making the choice between sound quality and space required to store your music. I prefer to keep the rate at a bare minimum of 128 for music, though audio books and old radio programs can be squeezed.
If you scroll down to Options, here’s the dreaded Copy Protect Music button: uncheck that. Lo and behold, the option to automatically start ripping is selectable right here too.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Message Edited by neutron_bob on 03-18-2009 07:08 AM
Hi folks, absolutely brand new to this site. Very limited PC experience. My sansa fuse was working great, no problem ripping cd’s to the player. Just recently, it stopped working. I thought it was the battery. I put it to charge but the machine won’t even turn on !! I tried other usb ports, other computers…but no luck. The player was not dropped or damaged. Any suggestions. thanks
sicnarf wrote:
Hi folks, absolutely brand new to this site. Very limited PC experience. My sansa fuse was working great, no problem ripping cd’s to the player. Just recently, it stopped working. I thought it was the battery. I put it to charge but the machine won’t even turn on !! I tried other usb ports, other computers…but no luck. The player was not dropped or damaged. Any suggestions. thanks
The 1st thing to do whenever things don’t work right (or at all) is to reset the player. Slide the spring-loaded power switch on the side to the uppermost position and hold it there for at least 20 secs. (and up to 30). Release the button and see if it will start up normally now.
The 2nd thing to do if #1 doesn’t work is to start a new post by clicking the New Message button just under the Search box in the upper left area of the page, rather then just hitting Reply in a thread where the subject matter is totally different. Otherwise, your post is
Welcome to the Forums!!
Also, by using the New Message button and titling your post, it will draw more attention to your issue; more folks will see it and can then help you.
As Tapeworm mentioned, the soft reset is the hot ticket to try first, holding the slider in the ON position for 20 seconds or so, release, then try starting it up again.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
