SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 Player no longer plays mp3s

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

Here is my situation.

I have a Sandisk Clip 2 gig MP3 player, with microphone and FM tuner. I just an hour ago went for a walk, selected a song and clicked play. Nothing happened. It did not play; but rather paused and unpaused.

I tried the button “Reset All” which should return it to factory settings, and solve minor glitches. Nothing. It has not been dropped or exposed to moisture. FM radio still works, MP3 does not.

Went home, plugged it in to charge. When I enter the filing system in Windows Vista, the Clip shows 1.5 gigs “used space” (which is the size of what was on there) and 0.5 “free space”, which is in line with what is free.

This is where it is strange. In Windows, the files do not appear to be there, as in, all files are hidden, and the directories show minor/empty sizes (ie: 16kb). All files have suddenly become hidden and unplayable.

What to do to recover my music and voice recordings? In particular the voice! I did the reccomended firmware upgrade, and the player still reads 1.5 gigs used, so I have reason to believe the files are still there - why would they not be?

Thanks for your help, in advance, with this somewhat confusing problem.

2

Change the USB mode in the player menu, then reconnect the player. Your songs will then appear on the pc. Are your songs in mp3 format? Did they play before? perhaps the file table on the player is messed up? Find mtable.sys on the player and delete it via the pc. Disconnect the player, turn it off, then back on. The player will recreate mtable.sys and hopefully it will work properly now. are your songs mp3 or wma? Perhaps you could give us more information?

3

Hi JK98, I changed the USB mode in the player menu, the songs do not appear on the PC. Songs are in MP3 format. So are the recordings the player has generated. I deleted mtable.sys - it does not seem to have changed anything. I did the firmware upgrade, it does not seem to have changed anything either. It is as if the files are still there, but the player and the computer cease to recognize them.

Both the player and the PC still show the player as having 1.5 gigs in use, and 0.5 gigs free, so somehow the data is still on there.

What do you all suggest for this problem? Data recovery somehow?

Thank you for your thoughts.

4

@erik wrote:

Hi JK98, I changed the USB mode in the player menu, the songs do not appear on the PC. Songs are in MP3 format. So are the recordings the player has generated. I deleted mtable.sys - it does not seem to have changed anything. I did the firmware upgrade, it does not seem to have changed anything either. It is as if the files are still there, but the player and the computer cease to recognize them.

 

Both the player and the PC still show the player as having 1.5 gigs in use, and 0.5 gigs free, so somehow the data is still on there.

 

What do you all suggest for this problem? Data recovery somehow?

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

Whichever USB mode you switched to, now try the other one. If you switched it to MTP, try MSC. If you switched it to MSC, try MTP.

Something else I just remembered…I think with MTP files, that somewhere in Windows there is a “show hidden files” or something like that…I believe that will make the songs visible on your PC. 

5

Hi guys,

Thanks for the answers so far. I’ve been reading on the site, and tried a CHKDSK operation and Scan and Attempt for Recovery of Bad Sectors.

Here is a photo of my results.

It seems as if Windows Vista has healed the bad sectors; yet I cannot see the files. I have turned on Hidden Files; but now, how do I view them?

And here is where it gets very confusing; the player, when disconnected, will play 26 songs. These have been recovered by the CHKDSK from two albums in particular.

I have files I have recorded on the Clip. I do not want to format the Clip - I want to recover and access these files. What other actions can I take to get the information off this player, and onto my hardrive, to recover this data?

Your thoughts on this are much appreciated.

800×532 9.3 KB

6

I cant offer you any help but… I tried to close the Wikipedia tab in your picture because for some reason I thought it was my browser…

7

Sounds like your device may have a corrupted firmware, or music database file.

Fear not, let’s do a wee bit of surgery in your case, working on the firmware, but not your loaded music just yet.

On your device, we can navigate to USB mode; for now, manually select MSC mode.

Now, go to Settings > Info and read the top line of the display.  This is the firmware version , which will also tell us if we have a revision 1 or 2 device (different firmwares).

Check out this thread for the current firmware.  Manually download, unzip, and drag-and-drop the firmware bin file to the root directory as described in the thread’s instructions.  We want to have the Sansa reinstall the firmware.  This will not affect your music, unless there’s a nasty corruption, which I doubt.

Afterwards, right click on the Clip and select Eject, or use “safely remove hardware” in the system tray.  Unplug, and your device will say “firmware upgrade in progress”.

See if your music reappears by navigating on the device, after the database refresh.

If it does not, select MSC mode again, and connect.  Delete the file mtable.sys in the root directory of the Clip.  This is the music information database.  When you unplug, the Sansa will build a new database.

As for the music files not showing up on the PC, you have to try both MTP and MSC modes, then have a look with Windows Explorer again, to see which mode the files reappear in.  From the PC, the device has to be in the same mode as the transfer, to see the files.  It’s a Microsoft thing.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

8

Hi neutron_bob,

Still struggling with this, I tried plugging it into both a Vista and a Windows XP computer in both MSC, Auto and MTP modes - neither one is recognized and no files are visible.

The firmware upgrade does nothing; the Clip doesn’t appear to want to update itself, it appears to be at “most up to date” settings.

I tried deleting mtable.sys -the Clip rebuilds it, yet does not recognize the files.

Does anyone know of a program which can recover data off a drive like this? Both the drive and Windows still register the drive as having space used, and I suppose, hidden files onboard. There must be some way to take a “snapshot” of the drive and analyze it to pull the data off.

Much appreciation for your suggestions! 

Erik

Stats:

Version V.02.01.32A

1929mb Used mem

285mb Free mem