Uploaded 30gb of music to SD card for Clip Zip - it aint there :/

[insurgente]

Hey all,

Finally moved on to a Sansa. I'm flying away early tomorrow so hoped to have all my music sorted before I go.

Last night, with my SD card in the Clip Zip and the Zip connected to my computer, I dragged and dropped a good 30gb of music to the SD card. Not knowing where to put it, I left it in the 'msc' folder on the SD card - maybe that was bad but it looked like 'music'.

Upon disconnecting, the Clip Zip took ages to update the database (Fair enough, it had a lot to do). I eventually went to bed and left it, assuming it'd eventually finish. When I woke up the battery was dead....so I'm worried it did not finish updating and somehow the database got corrupted.

Turning my Zip on and having a browse, I noticed there was hardly any music on there. Connecting to my computer via the Zip, it says the SD card is pretty much full. However opening the MSC folder (all other folders are now gone) it shows nothing

If I put the SD card in to a USB reader, I can browse pretty much all the files, in the root of the SD card. Some just have some letters/number at the start, e.g. CF090000 -- i assume some Sandisk databasing?

Some files claim to not be there at all, and I can't delete them as apparently they're not there

Any tips on what to do? Can I salvage this without formatting my Micro SD card and starting again? What's the best way to upload to SD card? via my USB reader or with the Clip Zip connected to my computer?

Thanks!

[Mikerman]

Is your player's USB mode, under Settings, set to MTP mode? MTP mode sometimes can do this. Easiest to work is MSC mode--and you likely will need to reformat your player under Settings to get rid of the old, problematic transfer and to start over again . . . .

[insurgente]

Thanks for the advice.... So it seems a format and another 3 hours of transfers will be required? :/ format just the sd card or the sansa's internal memory as well? (internal music is workin fine)

In my settings USB is currently set to 'auto'.... Should i format first then change to MSC, or change to MSC then format?

[Mikerman]

Originally Posted by insurgente

Thanks for the advice.... So it seems a format and another 3 hours of transfers will be required? :/ format just the sd card or the sansa's internal memory as well? (internal music is workin fine)

In my settings USB is currently set to 'auto'.... Should i format first then change to MSC, or change to MSC then format?

I would just bite the dust and do it (the reformat)--that will set you aright. And I would format everything, as you want to keep all your files as transferred to the player under a single USB mode (recommended: MSC), as your computer will only see the files on your player that were transferred to the player under the USB mode you then are connected under--having both MSC and MTP mode-transferred files just complicates things, with your computer not seeing everything at one time.

And as far as I know, the order (reformatting and changing USB mode) doesn't make a difference.

As painful as it is in taking the time to fill your card and player again, it's a 1-shot thing. And then, hopefully, it's smooth sailing! (But keep the USB mode set to whatever you have chosen, and note that if you ever reapply the firmware or reset under the player's System Settings, the USB mode gets reset to Auto--you'll need to change it back to what you're using.)

[insurgente]

Thanks for the tips.... Apologies for my delay in replying, and for writing this on my phone

So i formatted and used the MSC setting

Now my computer sees 2 separate drive letters (one for the player, one for the sd card). My 32gb card shows up as 29.something.....i know not getting the full amount is normal, but that much?

Filled the card via the sansa. Let it refresh last night whikst i thought it was plugged in.... Apparently it wasnt and the battery ran out

Connected the charger and turned it on.... It's been refreshing for a couple of hours, aarrghhhh.... It's stuck on about 90 or 95 percent. Not sure what to do. If i let the battery run down, it'll have to refresh again when i turn it on?

Bought the sd card from amazon, so will be pretty annoyed if it's a dud

[Tapeworm]

Originally Posted by insurgente

Now my computer sees 2 separate drive letters (one for the player, one for the sd card).

This is normal for MSC mode. The computer is seeing the 2 separate drives (the player and the card slot). It will do this whether there's a card inserted or not.

Originally Posted by insurgente

Filled the card via the sansa. Let it refresh last night whikst i thought it was plugged in.... Apparently it wasnt and the battery ran out

The player will not refresh while it is plugged in; only when you un-plug it. And if it was un-plugged, it shouldn't deplete the battery overnight, unless it was very low to begin with. More likely it just 'appeared' to be dead, you probably just needed to reset it in the morning. Although, it could also be certain AAC files as Skip eluded to.

Originally Posted by insurgente

Connected the charger and turned it on.... It's been refreshing for a couple of hours, aarrghhhh.... It's stuck on about 90 or 95 percent.

As mentioned, files it has trouble decyphering will cause the hang-up you're seeing. Usually it's an ID3 tag issue when this happens (but also could be the afore-mentioned AAC files). Many things can cause this, and have been discussed in numerous threads and forums. Format (of tags), Comments field loaded with unnecessary garbage, humongous embedded album art, non-Latin characters or text to name a few.

[Tapeworm]

You probably left the player in its default USB setting, Auto Detect, or as it is referred to by many, Auto Defect. This will connect first in MTP if possible leading to the problems you seem to be experiencing and as Mikerman pointed out. Using MSC mode you should not see an MSC folder, but a true Music folder in which to drag & drop (copy & paste) your files.

[FreeZ5]

When I first read this message this morning, I thought "sounds like a bad/fake SD card".

So this afternoon when I had a few minutes free, I changed my Zip to MTP mode, and inserted a blank microSDHC card. I copied a couple of songs into the MSC folder on the microSD card. I disconnected the player from my PC, and the songs played just fine. I accessed via the database and the folder view. Also worked fine in Auto-defect mode (as I expected), and MSC mode (which I also expected).

So that leaves a couple of possibilities in my mind.

1. there's something wrong with your music files such that the Zip doesn't recognize them - seems unlikely to me
2. I noticed that the Zip didn't show the MSC folder when in folder view, just the files that were in the MSC folder. Perhaps you didn't put them in the MSC folder. Unlikely but easy to check.
3. the card is bad/fake - since I don't know where the card came from, I can't comment. Hopefully not eBay
4. something else that I haven't thought of

The recommended program for checking the card is H2TESTW.

Good luck, Steve

[skip252]

The size you see is right. The manufacturers use a different standard for what's a gigabyte. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyt...umer_confusion

The database refresh will happen whenever you change anything on the card or the player. Removing, then replacing the card, even if the player is powered off, can cause the refresh. That doesn't always happen but enough that I wouldn't take it out if you need the player right away. Once it's triggered the player simply won't boot fully boot until it's done.

There's some decent tips in the first part of this thread http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...t=57248&page=3 on how to shorten the database refresh time. The player being discussed is the Fuze but I've found the same steps work to help cut down on any sandisk player. It's mostly cleaning out any tags the player doesn't use and keeping a fairly simple folder/file structure.

One thing I've seen reported is that some type files the CZ should play can cause problems. I've seen reports that some AAC files can cause the database refresh to take so long the battery dies before it completes.

[Mikerman]

I've never had a refresh go more than 30 minutes. But with MP3 VBR files, a pedestrian file structure, and simple file names and ID3 tags.

[skip252]

If you really want to format I'd use this tool https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/ or the built in formatting utility. Using either of those methods sets things the way they should be on the default settings. If you use the SDformatter connect in MSC mode and pick the drive letters of your player, accept the defaults and the quick format option.

Have you opened your files in the Extended Tags pane of MP3Tag? When I did that I found dozens of tags I had no idea were there. When I eliminated them my refresh times dropped considerably.

[insurgente]

now that I've formatted in windows (default allocation size... Other options were 8192 bytes, 16 kilobytes, 32,64) i can format again in the player or with that program (as it wont be refreshing constantly

Will look at the tags.... I suppose i could batch a few folders at a time, deleting columns of unneccessary tags?

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by insurgente

Will look at the tags.... I suppose i could batch a few folders at a time, deleting columns of unneccessary tags?

You probably need to use the Extended Tags dialogue. That is by song, but you can go through a folder with thearrow tags.

Steve

[skip252]

It's doubtful repeated formats will accomplish much of anything if you used the Windows defaults. The SDFormatter is designed to bring the flash memories to compliance with the SD standard but I haven't seen an improvement I'm willing to swear by. There may be a performance increase but it hasn't been enough to where I would format another time.

I did my tags by creating copies of a few folders and cleaning those. I'm really glad I worked with those copies first.

I found some of the information was only held in certain tags. I had to make another copy when I removed a few of what I thought were the right tags and stripped all the important information out of some of the first set of copies.

I found that it was best for me to write the tags as ID3v2 then eliminate everything but the ID3v2 tags. MTM has a nice graphic that shows the way I set up to do that here http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...712#post583712

After I set it up like that I selected all the copies, went into the Extended Tags pane and just OKed whatever was there. That wrote all the tags as ID3v2. After making sure all the tags had been written as ID3v2 I went back and removed all the APE and ID3V1 tags. Then I knew it was safe to use the Extended tags pane to eliminate all the tags the player doesn't use.

I loaded the originals and checked the refresh time. I deleted those and loaded the cleaned ones. My refresh time dropped by about ~80%.

I have a backup of everything so I got adventurous and batched the rest of files I planned on putting on my players the same way. It took hours once I started things rolling. The setup only took a few minutes. Writing, then eliminating the tags is what took all the time. Fortunately I only had to do it once.

When it was done the files I had took my refresh time from over 45 minutes down to about 9 minutes. That was with a fully loaded 8 GB player with 16 GB card.