The display of the Fuze will state connected , but this can be misleading. Connected, as displayed, means that the Sansa sees data activity or a live data bus. In a perfect world, I would have opted for the additional message communicating , but the choice was to keep the diaplay simple (folks may think that “communicating” is similar in meaning to the “reading” and “writing” messages, which warn the user that data transfer is active).
MSC is the more basic comm mode, where the Sansa is addressed directly as a flash drive. MTP mode is actually one level higher, a virtual mode supported by Windows Media Player in the background, allowing many capabilities in the process, such as secure wma (DRM), for example.
Open a Windows Explorer window by pressing [Windows key] + E, and let us know how the Sansa is listed: if it’s assigned a drive letter and appears under “devices with removable storage”, it’s talking in MSC mode. If it is listed at the bottom of the list, with no drive letter, under “other”, it’s in MTP mode, recognized as a media device.
In either case, there’s one difference: in MTP, the device manager will list the Sansa as a Portable Device. Here’s where you’ll be looking for the device, then uninstall it, and try again (I prefer to reboot the PC, as the driver details are entered in the system registry). Rebooting prods Windows to make corrections it might not do otherwise. The registry is the Achilles’ Heel of Windows.
When rebooting, be sure the Sansa is not plugged in until the PC reboots fully.
If you’re in MSC mode, look at Universal Serial Bus Controllers, then USB Root Hub, and look for teh Sansa hidden under the Power tab that pops up when double clicking each root hub position. Then, you can go to the Driver tab and Uninstall.
Bob