Guide: Recovering a bricked Sansa (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK) (Out of date)

[zivan56]

This guide is out of date, see http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/e200tool.html for up to date information. Some people are unable to use e200tool under Windows, so this guide will not work for them.

WARNING: This may brick your player even more, so only use it as a last resort. ONLY USE IT ON THE ORIGINAL e2xx (non-R)

Well after seeing quite a number of people brick their Sansa by putting random files in recovery mode, I decided to write a guide on how to fix it. All credits go to MrH for writing this program and figuring everything out. Also to Bagder for most of the steps. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS IF YOU CAN ACCESS RECOVERY MODE, ONLY USE THIS IF YOU JUST GET A BLUE RING NO MATTER WHAT.

First, you need to get e200tool from here. Download the Windows binary and extract it somewhere (say c:\e200tool). Then, download and install libusb-win32 (you need to install the driver/filter). Then, get the rom file for your player (this works on e200 and c200 (probably e200r as well if they ever release a rom file)). The rom file can be obtained in many ways, just do a search for a firmware zip file which includes a mi4 and rom file. It is usually called BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom
You will need to extract the rom file from wherever you got it, and put it in c:\e200tool as well.

Now, go to start->run and type cmd and press enter
type: cd c:\e200tool
Now, put your Sansa in manufacturing mode:
1. Make sure it is off
2. Turn on the lock at the top
3. Hold centre button (keep holding it)
4. Plug the player in
It will prompt you to install drivers, just ignore this.
5. Release the centre button, press and hold rec button while running:
e200tool recover BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom (or whatever the .rom filename is)
According to MrH:

When the e200tool runs init the scrollwheel is supposed to blink
once. If it blinks more than that (and for me, every once in a while,
it does, there is a bug somewhere...it means the player has detected a fatal error and should
be turned off before trying again.

The tool should tell you when it is done.
You should now have a new disk where you can put the above downloaded rom and mi4 file.


If the e200tool program fails to find the device, it may possibly have a severe problem which cannot be fixed by this. Or, it may be in a USB port which is not functioning properly.

Let me know if this works for you.