2 GB Fuze FAT Is Corrupted, USB Device Not Recognized

It doesn’t have to be played. As far as I know, the Not Enough Space message occurs as the database is being read.

Size…you’ll be happy to know…does not matter. 

Instead of testing your current files, why not run them all through mp3tag before transferring with:

Write Options, under Tags/Mpegs, set to ISO-8859-1

Running Auto-Numbering Wizard with leading zeroes.

Comments all blanked out (you can also set this as a default)

Keep an eye on foreign characters or anything non-alphanumeric in any field.

Do this BEFORE you put the albums on and you may never have the problem again. 

And please, use MSC. I can’t vouch for the behavior of MTP. 

The chkdsk utility or using Windows’ manage function path both require the Sansa to be in MSC mode.  It will recover the FAT regardless of the transfer mode used for your music, be it MSC or MTP.

Of course, if the device was in MTP before the corruption, you’ll have to manually force MSC for the check / repair process.

I can’t overstate the importance of having proper ID3 tags on your music.  Windows Media Player, by default, uses ID3v2.3, ISO 8859-1 for the tag metadata.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

I hate to appear ignorant as I go into this process, but I really am. First of all, I’ve never transferred music tracks in MSC mode. Does that treat it just like another disk drive, but the songs will still be playable on the device? And if I strip all of the tag information from the files how will I determine which track(s) is causing the problem?

Message Edited by TomJensen on 05-03-2010 06:25 PM

Everyone is making this more complicated than it has to be.

Make sure you have copies of your songs and then Format the Fuze  (with the command on the unit, under Settings/System Settings ) to empty it completely. 

Put in in MSC. Yes, it will play the songs. It LOOKS like a flash drive to your computer. It’s still a music player in your hand. 

If you don’t format it, it will see all the songs you have put on in either MSC or MTP mode–although your computer can only see one mode (MSC or MTP) at a time. 

DON’T strip the tags completely. Strip Comments, fix any weird characters, look for any other fields that are

insanelylongfilledwithuselessunreadable30r948y02d98hgarbageorembeddedfiles and strip them,

and Save (by the default you have set under Options/Tags/Mpeg) as ISO-8859-1.

Put an album or two on the unit at a time, unplug, let it refresh. If you see the database problem, you’ll know it was the last album you added. But with clean tags, you are unlikely to have the problem.

Using Black-Rectangle’s procedure now. It may take a while since I have a lot of albums and tags to go through.

And, yes, I could buy a new player, but I like this one and don’t really need something with 500 GB on it. What I really need is some way of getting this thing to play on my car’s stereo. And, no, I’m not going to buy a new car stereo, either. 

And, as an aside, my suspicion is that if I have poorly tagged albums, it’s probably the bootleg Grateful Dead sets that I have. You know how those Deadheads are… 

Message Edited by JeffGeorge on 02-09-2010 12:08 PM

Tie-dyed or acid-laced tags could definitely be a problem. And the Fuze is very picky about versions of “Fire on the Mountain.”

@black_rectangle wrote:
Tie-dyed or acid-laced tags could definitely be a problem. And the Fuze is very picky about versions of “Fire on the Mountain.”

I knew that Phish version I downloaded was trouble! 

I have 4 GB Fuze and have same problem.  After downloading an update from sansa, computer now won’t recognize

device, so the solutions don’t work w/out having device recognized.   I’ve had it for under a yr, but bought it as refurb

from woot, so can’t return.  I’ve emailed sandisk with problem, waiting to hear back.  Like the player, very disappointed

it’s crashed when I’ve only had it a couple of months . . .

The update probably switched it to MTP. Go to Settings/System Settings/USB Mode and change to MSC.

I just saw something interesting with my device that I hadn’t seen before. I’m going through the routine of modifying tags and testing tracks to see which ones are good and which ones may be causing a problem. I powered up the device with the ones that are currently on it and everything looked good, so I plugged it in to try another batch of albums. The autoplay of listing the Explorer for the files popped and I noticed that the directory names were all wacky, even though I had had no problem with the current batch of songs. This concerned me so I immediately disconnected the device and wouldn’t you know it: I got the ‘not enough space’ message. I just thought that was a little weird, that it seemed able to read the db fine on power up but someone lost it once I plugged it in. Wacky piece of equipment.

Are you still sending them over via Windows Media Player in MTP? For reasons unknown (to me anyway) it sometimes changes directory names. I really recommend MSC unless you have DRM files that need MTP.

Also, if you “immediately disconnected” it, without using Safely Remove Hardware, it may have been partway through writing and left you with some corrupted files.  I don’t always Safely Remove it myself, but there is a risk.  

You could also turn off Autoplay, which is a good idea for anything you connect, security-wise. 

Actually, it may have been in auto-detect mode, as I had reformatted before I put that group of files on. I never disconnect anything until I get the ‘safe’ message, but I will turn off autoplay for it, since I haven’t been thinking about security lately, just music!

As an aside, I really like this Mp3tag application. But is there a way to keep the current database loaded? Every time I start the app I have to wait for it to load thousands upon thousands of records. Is there a way to cache them?

Black-Rectangle wrote:

Are you still sending them over via Windows Media Player in MTP? For reasons unknown (to me anyway) it sometimes changes directory names. I really recommend MSC unless you have DRM files that need MTP.

 

Also, if you “immediately disconnected” it, without using Safely Remove Hardware, it may have been partway through writing and left you with some corrupted files.  I don’t always Safely Remove it myself, but there is a risk.  

 

You could also turn off Autoplay , which is a good idea for anything you connect, security-wise. 

I’m not sure I get what you’re suggesting here. I’ve always had it set to open Windows Explorer to view the files on my players when I connect them, both on my old XP computer, and this new one with Windows 7, and it has never caused a problem for me. If you are suggesting not having unfamilar devices open with Auto-Play, I could certainly see the wisdom in that. :smiley:

Yes, I mean unfamiliar devices, not the Fuze, for general security. It’s amazing what people will plug in or pop into their computers without checking first. 

Mp3tag will open whatever folder you direct it to under Tools/Options/Start from this Directory. I use an empty folder called Mp3tag (very original name) in my Albums folder, and from there I can jump up a level to pick the album I want. When I had it on Albums, it did the same thing yours does.

If you installed mp3tag with Add to Context Menus, or reinstall it with that checked during install, you can also just right-click the folder of the album you want to retag, in Windows Explorer. The Open With menu will include  mp3tag,  to deal with that particular folder. 

And Jeff, please, remember to use MSC while you’re working this out. My policy is, the less Windows automation the better. 

Message Edited by Black-Rectangle on 02-15-2010 09:58 AM

The problem I’ve run into now with some of my albums is that they are DRM files, which I cannot use MSC for. Is it fairly safe to trust that the DRM-based files are not causing issues? I’ve noticed that Rhapsody adds comments to their licensed files, such as USSM19932378, for example. Should I just ignore all of my DRM files so that I can keep the device in MSC mode? 

And I’m going to use your suggestion for starting up Mp3tag. I definitely want to have to load all of those records every time I start it up. 

Yes, you’re stuck with MTP for the DRM files. But you might as well use MTP only for them.

Presumably, since they are paid for, someone took some care with the tags, so they should be trouble-free. If that’s all Rhapsody’s Comments, have, just a string of letters and numbers, they shouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes people embed whole webpages, images, etc. in Comments–that’s what gets messy. 

If it were me, I’d just MTP only for the DRM files, and expect some folder name or filename oddities that the Fuze probably won’t care about. But I’d use MSC for everything else, because that’s how I roll. 

The Fuze will see all your files, no matter how they got there. You’ll just have to remember that you’ll only see one mode at a time via Windows Explorer, so don’t send over duplicates. 

So I’ve been testing files and tags and what have you for the past couple of days or so and I’ve come to the following conclusion:

The ‘not enough space’ error occurs no matter what I do.

The only common thread I’ve seen is that it happens after the device has been off for a while (sometimes as little as an hour).

For example, I could have just 5 tracks on the device, with all tags looking fine (no comments, weird characters or other) and the tracks will successfully play repeatedly. I can turn the device off and turn it back on as many times as I want, but if left off I invariably get the error the next time I turn it on. It doesn’t seem to matter how many tracks are on the device, the USB mode I’m using, or the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of the tags. Hell, it will happen with just one song on the device.

I’m almost prepared to admit defeat at this point, as I’m tired of having this lovely little device break my heart. 

Sounds like you have been more than thorough. 

Usually, overwhelmingly often,  this is a software and tagging problem. But you’ve pretty clearly ruled that out.

So after all that, I’d guess that it’s hardware-related, and you got a lemon.  If you can exchange it…well, at least now you have clean tags.