I recently picked up a 4GB Sandisk MicroSD card, plugged it into my Express, connected my Express to a USB port and successfully copied nearly 4GB of music. When I tried to use it, it started acting strangely, turning off and on, and rebuilding the database repeatedly. I figured that I might need to update the firmware to support the 4GB MicroSD so I downloaded the software. It got to about 50% complete and hung. I tried running it on another computer, but it wouldn’t even recognize that the Express was plugged into the USB port (although I hear a ‘ding’ from Windows when I plug it in, but the device never shows up in the Explorer or device manager).
I have tried the hard reset repeatedlly, I have put my older 2GB microSD card back in, taken both out, all combinations thereof, to no effect. Right now I have a cute little Sansa Express brick. It won’t power on and I get no display on it when I plug it into a computer.
It has performed flawlessly up to now. Can anyone offer any ideas?
The SE is unstable and unpredictable, but still a nice MP3. I debricked my 1gb SE by inserting a 512Mb micro SD card. Switched on and it just worked ?!? Had problems with a 4gb sandisk SD micro, but I kept on reformatting the SE and the 4gb card. Using both the SE format function and on PC thru windows. Also reinstalled firmware a few times (Americas version) After all that could not sync successfully, so just repeated the process, and again, and again… and then suddenly everything worked !!! I have about 1gb songs on the SD card and about 500mb on the SE. 400 of my all time greatest songs which I am not going to chage soon - if ever. I don’t want to go thru everything again.
A pain to go thru all this, but the SE now works flawlessly. And it is a great player to carry around on trips with radio and recording and easy charging and cheap so no big thing if it gets lost.
My 4 GB Transcend micro SD card works with 1 GB Sansa Express. I am A sandisk guy when it comes to SD cards. However, After reading this forum I realized many people recommend Transcend brand for Express. So, I ordered mine from Amazon. I have about 3,85 GB music on the card, and maybe 900 MB music (160 kbps mp3’s) on the player itself.
When I turn the player on, it takes a while (maybe one minute) for database to do its thing. Then ,all the music files are listed as if they were in the same directory.
I am afraid there were too many complaints about express that Sansa discontinued. I also own 2 GB clip which works perfect. It is much better than Express. Especially at the gym.