Not recognizing Clip in MTP mode - need to be in MTP to transfer audiobook files from Netlibrary?

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
1

I just bought the 4gb Sansa Clip today, and I am already on my second one. The first one, once fully charged, turned itself off and would not turn back on for anything, including holding the power button up for 15-20 seconds. So away to Sears where I bought it, and they exchanged it for the last one they had (on clearance).

This one is now fully charged, and I am trying to put audiobooks downloaded from Netlibrary through my local public library onto it. My computer (running XP with SP3) does not recognize the Clip at all in either auto detect or MTP mode. I downloaded the CD quality version of the audiobooks, added them to my Windows Media Player 11 library, added them to the sync list pane, and synchronized them to my clip, all in MSC mode (since my computer won’t recognize it any other way). They appear in my music folder on the Clip, but say 00:00 time and when I try to play them, it says “synchronize to continue your music subscription”. 

I should also mention before attempting any of this, I downloaded the latest version of firmware available.

I realize all the posts I’ve been able to find say that due to DRM, the Clip must be in MTP mode to transfer audiobooks… but none of the posts I’ve seen explain what to do when it doesn’t work in MTP mode. I apologize if this post is not as succinct as it could be, my levels of frustration are high!

2

Have you seen this one from fellow Sansa Guru and all around nice guy, neutron_bob?

3

I did attempt that fix, however once my computer came back up and I reconnected the Clip, the little bubble popped up saying ‘found new MTP device’ or something similar, and opened a found new hardware dialog box offering to install drivers - which process only resulted in an error stating “An error occurred during the installation of the device, the specified service does not exist as an installed service.” The Clip still does not show up in Windows Media Player, the Sansa Updater, or My Computer.

4

Some people claimed that after the upgrade to SP3 they needed to uninstall and reinstall WMP to get MTP to work again. After the SP3 upgrade, MTP suddenly didn’t work on my pc, but I didn’t attempt to fix it and instead switched to MSC(which I wanted to do earlier but was too lazy to do so). If Neuton Bob’s suggestion doesn’t work, then imo the next step is to uninstall and reinstall WMP(Windows Media Player).