Charging Problem on Sansa c250

[GodEater]

If your computer can't see the device at all, I don't think formatting it will help. There's something seriously wrong with it. However, I'm not a subject matter expert with the sansa series players - so perhaps someone else might have a better idea.

[semih]

hopefully someone will because i'm about to throw the player out of the window  :'(

[Llorean]

At this point, it sounds like the most likely problem is a bad cable. Cables go bad pretty easily, and a cable that failed in just the right way might be able to cause this sort of behaviour. They're also cheaper to replace than the whole player, in most cases.

[LambdaCalculus]

Yes, this is true; the same can also be had for iPods. And as Llorean mentioned, a new cable can be had for pretty cheap.

semih: Buy a new Sansa cable and try that out. If it resolves your problem, then that will confirm the cable was bad. If not, then you do have something seriously wrong with your hardware, in which case you should consider replacing it.

[BruceHP]

Is an SD card installed, if so, remove it, reboot and try again.  If not, why not format it?

[GodEater]

Is an SD card installed, if so, remove it, reboot and try again.  If not, why not format it?

Can you *please* stop telling him to format it? It won't help, and he'll lose all his music.

[semih]

at this point i really don't care about my music files(if formatting the player will help), i have them all on my computers hard drive but if i format it and the problem still persists, then i'm really at a tough spot! what's bugging my mind is if the cable has gone bad, why does it charge the player? logically, if the cable is bad one would think that it shouldn't even charge. anyway, i will try to replace the cable and let you guys know about the result.

[yapper]

logically, if the cable is bad one would think that it shouldn't even charge.

There are multiple connections within the cable. Some carry power and others carry data. If the power connections are good, but the data connections are damaged, charging would work but data transfer would fail.

[GodEater]

at this point i really don't care about my music files(if formatting the player will help)

Formatting it won't help.

[Chronon]

logically, if the cable is bad one would think that it shouldn't even charge.

There are multiple connections within the cable. Some carry power and others carry data. If the power connections are good, but the data connections are damaged, charging would work but data transfer would fail.

Yes and this very thing has happened to me multiple times with iPods over the years.