I hope that I’m not jumping the gun when I say this, but I think my 1GB Express (which I’ve happily owned for about 11 months) may be heading out to pasture. Here’s the situation:
After a period of lying dormant for about 3 weeks, I decided to put new files on the Express, both on the microSD card (a SanDisk 4GB) and also in the internal memory. After syncing everything in Windows Media player, I looked in the System Info and it showed that space was used on the expansion card and also in the internal memory. However, only the files in the internal memory were recognized, not the card. Thinking that this might be a format problem, I did a clean format of both the internal memory and the expansion card on the player… and I also did a format of the microSD card in my laptop (in FAT32). Unfortunately, I still had the same problem with the expansion card-- internal memory is fine, data is on the expansion card, but the Express won’t read the card.
I thought that I might have a problem with the card itself. But-- this 4 GB microSD card was used first in a BlackBerry Curve, and then in my 8GB fuze without any ill effects (the Fuze now has an 8GB expansion card and it works beautifully).
My questions for everyone are the following: Can the microSD expansion slot go bad? Is my Express relegated now to just 1GB?
Any help or insight would be welcome. Many thanks in advance…
You just need to keep on trying. I think the express is just unstable at times and have difficulty handling the sizes of the storage media. My express is also 1gig and about two years old with a 4 gig sandisk micro. Had exactly the same problems, but kept on formatting the express and the sd card (on pc and express). after a few reformats it syncs and everything is ok, but next time you sync with new songs you could have the same problem. Just keep on with the reformatting until it is ok again, and then again…,and again. Bit of a hassle, but it is such a nice mp3 - I can’t throw it away.
Sandisk I think you have a winner here for the price, pity you discontinued the express. Where in the world can you get the features and potential memory expansion to 16 gig at such a price ?!?
Thanks for the reply. So I’ve been messing with the Express for the past couple of weeks after your reply. I’ve been repeatedly formatting the internal memory and also the external microSD card, both using the Express menu and through the computer.
Last night I did a FAT32 format of the microSD card in my computer, then inserted it into the Express to put an album’s worth of tracks on it via WMP. Sadly, this didn’t work, even after multiple tries. The internal memory works just fine.
So I’m thinking about 2 suggestions: 1) Maybe I should downgrade the external capacity to 2GB instead of 4, and/or 2) just drag and drop tracks into the expansion card via the computer. I’ve seen quite a few users here in the forums have some success with drag and drop.
I’ll give this a try… and if any progress is made, I’ll let everyone know.
Hey I think I have the same problem…My 4gb stick is recognised on the player (although when I try to formt it I think it crashes?!) On windows there is no reference to it at all. But when I stick the card in it says building database… so there is some recogniton of the card but the system details only report the internal memory…anybody got any ideas on this?
Just an update on the SE: It still isn’t reading the 4GB microSD card. But get this-- I tried a 1GB microSD card and it worked just fine. Thinking that as a small victory, I switched back to the larger 4GB card. No joy. I really do like this player enough to not get rid of it. So it looks like I’m going to find a 2GB expansion card, stick it in the SE and leave it be. At least I know that anything under 4GB in the expansion slot won’t give me trouble.
I have now added more songs - to my 4gb SD card. Thought it will crash the SE again. No problem, works perfectly. I used Windows Explorer, NOT media player to do it.
So I am now impressed !!! Value for money mp3 player. 1gb SE with 4gb SD card, 430 songs on it so far, and it can handle up to 1,000 songs.
Your suggestion of formatting both internal & external memory worked. I also took the precaution of loading the expansion card one album at a time, slowly. So far things are working on the SE. And once the music I need loaded on it is there, I’m leaving it alone. q-:
