sansa e250 black screen freeze

[skyecore]

first thanks all to this community. really excited to rockbox my sansa but now i need some help.

rockbox seemed to install fine i turned it on navigated around but then i plugged back into the desktop to charge and ever since then when i turn it on, the blue wheel lights up but nothing else happens. Windows doesent see it as a drive letter but it does pop up the 'found new hardware wizard' and calls it a usb device. since windows doesent see it as a drive letter that means that the rockbox utility can't see it either...

'hope somone can help.. thanks

PS. I read the forum sticky and it said this is the wrong forum if rockbox has already successfully loaded even once but i couldn't find one that seemed more appropriate than this. sorry if it's in the wrong place

[nloewen]

what version of windows media player do you have? wmp 11 uninstalls the msc support so in order for windows to recognize your player you need to put it in mtp mode. Unfortunatly you can't install rockbox in mtp.

[skyecore]

thank you for answering..

I do have WMP11 and i did follow the instructions in the rockbox manuel and switched my player to msc to put rockbox on. I dont usually use wmp for mp3 syncing anyway but maybe when i plugged it(the sansa) into a usb port wmp popped up and un-installed msc. is that what you meant? if so what can i do about it?

[MarcGuay]

Could you describe what happens when you try to turn it on from the OFF state?  Make sure it's completely shut-down by holding the power button for 30+ seconds.  If you plug it in to a USB port (not a hub) from the OFF state?  If you are only getting a blue ring in these situations you have a bigger problem than setting up the proper USB modes, but searching the forums will turn up many people who have succefully recovered from his.

[skyecore]

thank you marcGuay. right, so to turn it off completely i do need to hold the power button down for the whole 30 sec. it then turns off completely. Then turning it on. yes it only lights up when I plug it in.

it is plugged into it's usb cord that goes directly to a usb port on the back of the pc.

can you help suggest what to search for in the forums to fix this"more sereus problem"?

[MarcGuay]

Can you get into recovery mode?

It's described here: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200Unbrick

[skyecore]

no nothing happens when i follow those steps except that it turns on, or actually the blue ring lights up but no screen

--correction! in my last post i said that the only time the blue wheel lights up is when it's plugged in. that was true at the time but after pulling the battery out and putting it back in, it now does it's limited turn on (just the blue wheel no screen) whilst being plugged in or not.

[MarcGuay]

Can you try manufacturing mode, which is described on that page as well?  I'm curious as to how you got your player into this state, could you explain exactly what you did to get here?

[skyecore]

sure. i havent tried manufacturing mode yet and after i write this I need to get some sleep for work tomorrow but I'll explain how it it got to this state then tommorrow i'll try manufacturing mode.. so: I ran the rockbox utility. there was an error, i cannot remember the exact wording but i think it was somthing like "error installing themes" and there was only one button to hit, i think it was "ok" so i hit it and then unplugged the player and turned it on. everything seememd fin and i played around with the badass new firmware. i turned it off and on twice in the space of a day to play around with themes etc. the next day i plugged it back into the desktop to charge. i left it overnight and the next day i looked at it and the player said something like, and im kicking myself for not writing this down, "read error" and an error code (a string of numbers) so i unplugged it and tried to turn it off but it wouldnt turn off so i took the battery out and put it back in, re-booted and it seemed fine so i plugged it back in but same error. so again i tried to turn off, no luck. pulled the battery back out, then back in, turned on and wala! in the state it's in..

i dont know if this helps or not

edit: just read about manufacturing mode-- im on windows but my housemate has a mac not sure if it's osx but he is back in town tomorrow and maybe over the weekend i'll find some time to try it on his comp as windows doesent seem to be reccomended for this procedure.. might take me a min on his because I'm even more of a mac-idiot than a pc-idiot but still i'll get on it

[MarcGuay]

Perhaps this will help:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=18820.0

[skyecore]

wow great! thank you! the oddest thing though. yesterday i just picked it up and tried turning it on just to see and oddly it turned on fine when i plig it in the comp doesent recognize it but i think with some time i can figure that out. thank you for your help!