Computer does not recognize Sansa (was: help?)

[kim4u]

I've installed rockbox after hearing about it on my Sansa e280 (8GB) mp3/video player.
I installed everything properly and all but I was setting my personal settings for backlight and all that - and accidently set it to 0. Everything went pitch black and I couldn't see anything.

I panicked, pressed a bunch of buttons which got me nowhere.. so I decided to uninstall it and reinstall it.. thing is when I plug my device in, my computer doesn't recognize it anymore... and I tried pressing the power button. Doesn't work...

HELP? I'm thinking I'm in a major crisis here...

[Rootman]

Well let's take a look.  Are you starting the Sansa in the original OS and NOT in Rockbox?  The Sansa is not recognized by Windows while running Rockbox.  You do this by holding the LEFT (REW) button while turning the unit on.

Are you allowing the unit to totally come up into the Sansa OS BEFORE you plug in the cable into the PC?

If you ARE in the original Sansa OS is the USB mode set to MSC mode?  Go to SETTINGS -> USB MODE and make sure MSC and NOT MTP is chosen.

Make sure all this stuff is OK and then let us know what's going on if you still have problems.

[kim4u]

It doesn't start up at all.

Heres how it was

-I installed Rockbox
-Did settings, went to backlight, accidently put it to 0 which made it pitch black
             - panicked and pressed random buttons.
                  -Turned off (I think?)

-Now it won't turn on again
-I tried to turn it on and try to uninstall rockbox through computer hookup so I could get rid of the backlight problem but it wouldn't let me connect

[zajacattack]

OK, try this:
1. Take out the battery and place it back.
2. Plug into computer.

[kim4u]

Okay that seems to have worked, but I reinstalled just in case but my music folder won't show up when I initiate the player

[zajacattack]

In rockbox, go to Settings->General Settings->File View->Show Files and select "All"

[kim4u]

Alright - done and done, seems to be in good shape
Thanks a bunch!

[stavromulla]

Hello,
I have a similar problem to Kim4U, but slightly grander scale - my sandisk won't mount at all  on my mac (OS X 10.4.11)

I have to admit immediately that i probably brought this partially on to myself, can make out 2 blatant mistakes, the rest I'm hoping someone can help me with!

I have a sandisk e280 and want to run it on mac. I switched to the MSC mode, connected it and it mounted ok. THen I proceeded to install rockbox manually, which appeared to work ok as well. Next steps were:
 - disconnect from computer, worked fine
 - reconnected to computer, sandisk crashed. Had to hold start button for about 20 secs for it to reboot
 - decided something went wrong with manual installation and to deinstall rockbox
 - Mistake here - did not realise that it had to be started in OF to mount
 - restarted with OF, would not mount
 - reset the sandisk in OF, switched back to MSC mode
 - reconnected to Mac, used sansapatcher.dmg to uninstall
 - Mistake here: typed in "u" into the terminal window, on seeing "unmounting volume" I though I had to unmount it in Diskutility which I did
 - Terminal said that rockbox was uninstalled
 - unplugged the sansadisk, it did a system restart
  - attempted to install rockbox using the rockbox utility, would not find the player
 - player did not show in finder
 - checked it was still in MSC mode, which it was
 - reconnected to computer, would not mount.

Now, everytime I connect and disconnect from the Mac, sandisk performs a restart. It won't mount, although I have reset it several times and switched back to MSC mode everytime after that. I have also restarted my Mac
Where did I go wrong?
Please help!!!
Thanks ever so much

[zajacattack]

Have you tried using recovery mode to completely restore the original firmware?

[stavromulla]

another question - could it help if I tried connecting it to my PC at work? Could at least eliminate problems that my mac could have...

[zajacattack]

Yes, try it on a PC. To my knowledge, Mac has been know to not handle FAT32 devices as well as Linux and Windows.

[stavromulla]

Thanks!

[stavromulla]

UPdate:
I have found out a way to mount the sansadisk.
Firstly, I have discovered that when I start my Player in recovery mode, the 16mb USB volume appears in the disk utility, but not in the finder. However, the icon saying "mount" is gray.

Secondly, if I eject this USB partition via the disk utility, a couple of lines appear on the sansadisk screen: lun0 unlocked, lun0 ejected.

thirdly, when I unplug it and restart it with the "left" button held down, and then plugging it back in, it will mount 2 out of 3 times. if it stops mounting (I have tried variations), I repeat step one and two and it will mount again.

I can't however, get it to start in the recovery mode and mount in the finder, even when breaking my fingers to hold the left key down while I do that.

When it was mounted, I also ran the sansapatch again to uninstall (in the hope it might get rid of some ghost files). It then said "bootload removed". but nothing else changed.

I also removed via the terminal two .rockbox files, one in the directory "sansa 280" and one in "sansa 280/system". Still have to hold left button down to get it to mount.

Sorry for my long ramblings...

[Llorean]

Please start using the edit button rather than posting multiple posts in a row. The guidelines state that you must do this.

[MarcGuay]

2) when I unplug the player, it still does a system restart.

I'd really like to help you but I'm having a really hard time trying to figure out what you're talking about; slowing down a bit and describing things in greater detail would be helpful.  On this point I'm quoting above, though, I think I get it, and I think it's normal.  Find the SansaE200Port page in the wiki and read everything in there, chances are your questions will be answered.