Sansa e250: Freezes occasionally/can't access music files

[xaolindragon]

So my problem is a bit complicated (at least I think it is, considering I don't know much about Rockbox/sansa)

Anyway, I have a Sansa e250 and rockbox ver 3.4. Just two days ago it was working perfectly. Tonight, I turned it on and got to the main menu. I tried pressing the play button to continue playing music, but it just froze. I couldn't turn it off or anything. The only way for me to turn it off was to unscrew the back and take out the battery. Now, I got it work a bit and play music again, but it still freezes. Just at other times.

But here's my "real" problem: I can't access the files in my sansa. My computer can recognize the sansa and do the auto-play feature. But when I try to open up the drive the sansa's connected to, there's nothing. Literally, nothing. Not a single file. I right-click and go to properties, it says 0/0 bytes. I tried connecting it while it's in both the original firmware and Rockbox, but it still shows no files. Also, when I unplug the USB cable, it freezes and I have to take out the battery to turn it off.

Ironically, I can still play music files both in Rockbox firmware and the original firmware.

So, anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to be able to change my music files.

Edit: I saw a link for "unbricking". It mentioned that I should only do that if I can't go back to the original firmware, which I can, but it does seem like a promising way to reset absolutely everything.

[Chronon]

Does your Sansa get a drive letter?

[xaolindragon]

Yes it does. Drive L to be specific

[Chronon]

You can try running chkdsk to try to repair file system damage.  If that doesn't work, I would use the OF to format the internal storage.

[xaolindragon]

chkdsk? How do you do that? And use OF to format the internal storage for that matter?

Sorry, I really don't know much.

Edit: I found out how to do chkdsk. I think I'm doing it the right way, both using cmd and going to my computer and right-clicking, etc. However, neither works. I use cmd and it just says "the drive, the path, or the file is not valid". I try using the other method, which involves right-clicking, going to properties, tools, error-checking. But when I hit ok for the error-checking, the little window goes away and nothing happens.

Also, something I noticed. While it's plugged in, I check to see if it froze or anything by pressing a random button. While it does respond by lighting up the screen again, it lights up VERY slowly. It's as if I can see the individual levels of brightness.

Edit 2: 2 more things: I tried using OF to re-format everything, but there is no "Format" within the "Settings" of the OF. Also, when I connect the sansa via USB, I opened up rockbox utility to try and uninstall rockbox. However, it says my configuration is invalid and brings me to a window to select my device and path. However, no matter which device I select, an error comes up saying "Mountpoint is not writeable".

[Chronon]

It sounds like the file system could be badly damaged.

Is this a v1 Sansa?  You should be able to go to Settings > Format > Yes.

[xaolindragon]

See that's another thing. There is no "Format" under Settings. And I checked to see if it was V1 or not. I think it is since it says Version 01.02.24A

[Chronon]

Sorry, that is my fault.  I was consulting my daughter's c240 at the time.  I had forgotten that the way to format on an e2x0 is to boot into recovery mode and put an empty file named sansa.fmt.

See here:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaE200Unbrick

[xaolindragon]

How to I create a file? Do I just create a text document and save it as "sansa.fmt"?

[yapper]

Yes

[AlexP]

Although if you are using something like notepad in Windows, it will by default add .txt to whatever filename you chose (because it is brain-dead).  If you enter the file name as "sansa.fmt" (including the quotes) then it will do it.

[xaolindragon]

Ok. Thank you everyone for their input. Everything seems like to be working fine right now and I hope it stays that way.