e260 set to shuffle - but doesn't seem to do so properly

My e260 4gb drive is nearly full.  I’ve no idea how many tracks I have on there, but it must be approaching 1000.

I have it set to Shuffle, and yet it seems to favour certain artists who are played much more often than should be the case.  For example, I have six Beatles albums on it, but I reckon a Beatles track crops up at least 1 in 3 plays.  To me, if the Beatles represent about 6% of my tracks, then they should on average play about 6% of the time.

I use the player every day while walking the dog, but there are plenty of tracks that I never, ever hear, despite having had the Sansa for over a year.

I have tried switching off Shuffle, then switching it on again.  No improvement.

Is it possible that Shuffle is malfunctioning?  If so, how can I remedy this?

Many thanks for any ideas.

To me, a big bugaboo with the Sansa - the shuffle feature seems to repeat the same things over & over. How old is your player? Do you know the version? Either V1 or V2 (you can find out by looking at system data). If a V1, consider loading Rockbox. It shuffles much better & you can set it up to shuffle everything on your player before it repeats anything.

If a V2, I think you should be able to create a playlist of songs on your player & play through it, though I am guessing that you’d want to shuffle it before starting it or you’d run into the same thing.