I have a Sandisk Sansa m230 MP3 player. I installed Windows XP home edition and Windows Media Player 10 so I could put songs on my MP3 player. I'm able to take my own CD's and rip songs to WMP 10. But when I go to put them on my MP3 player it tells me "device not detected" I'm able to use my MP3 on my husbands laptop with no problem I have talked to Sandisk and Microsoft techs to try and solve this problem No one knows why my mp3 is not being detected. It's very frustrating. Does anyone have a insight to this? Thanks.

Does the device show up in Device Manager? If it normally mounts as a disk in Windows, is it mounting on your machine?

You'll need to post some details.

Where do I find Device Manager?

Did find Device Manager, but not sure what I'm looking for. Could you tell me what I should look for.

Something about your MP3 player.

Nothing in there about my Mp3 player. I'm going to have my husband look at his laptop and see what is in his Device Manager, maybe we'll see what my computer is missing. NOt sure how else to get my computer to recognize my mp3.

I would be surprised if your MP3 player did not come with a CD with appropriate software. So, follow the instructions included to install the software. When you have done this your operating system will probably recognize your MP3 player.

Have you done this??

Came with appropriate software and followed instructions. Just checked my husbands laptop and under Portable Devices in Control Panel when he plugs in my mp3 its shows up as Sansa m230 which is what I have. When I do the same on my computer-nothing! I even had a new disk sent from Sandisk that I had installed, nothing so far has worked. Not sure why it's not recongized.

Some USB mass storage devices and mp3 players require that you have Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 to work. I had a USB flash drive that kept restarting my computer until I installed SP1. That is the only thing that I can think of, have you tried different USB ports on the computer?

Yes, have tried different usb ports. Digital camera works fine, just my mp3 player on my computer. It's strange that my husbands laptop recognized it. We both have Windows XP home edition. We used same usb cable. I believe I have service pak 2, I think that's what my OS came with.

Ok this may sound crazy, but a have friend who is a Network Admin and he said this worked for him with a USB flash drive that wouldn't get recognized.

Shut down your PC. Then either turn off the power supply switch or unplug the power cable going into the power supply. Let the computer sit for a while (~30 Mins?). Power it back up and try again. There are other solutions, but this one is relatively simple. It's worth a shot, and all it takes is time.

Okay, we unplugged power supply on my computer to see if that will work. Can you ask your friend if maybe I need to download some other drivers? I have a ABIT motherboard, not sure if there is something that is missing.

I tried that and it didn't work. Thanks for trying to help me.

Did you install the drivers on your husband's laptop? Just a wild guess that these drivers could somehow be disabling XP's native support for MP3 players.

No we didn't install any drivers. All we did was put the CD that came with the MP3 player and downloaded that.

Sorry for not making it clearer, but the software on the CD was what I meant by drivers. Although given XP's support for such devices it may not have been actually have contained drivers.

WHere and which drivers would I need to get? When I had tallked to Sandisk they said I had the right drivers. They had me do a check, but can't remember what we did. If I knew which drivers to get I would try downloading them.

I had trouble with my player once (Creative MuVo² & XP Pro). In order for the computer to recognize the player I had to delete all the USB controller information in 'Device Manager' and let Windows redetect the USB devices. Another thing to check is to make sure you have the most recent motherboard drivers.

Well we downloades drivers from ABIT which is the motherboard I have. Still doesn't detect my MP3 player.

If it's an Intel motherboard, you should download and install their chipset drivers. Alternatively, in Device Manager you could delete all entries with "USB" in the name and reboot.

Do other devices work in the same USB port? If the computer was home-built (like mine) it could be that the port isn't enabled in the BIOS. I disable all the stuff I don't use, like serial ports, parallel ports, etc. Try plugging in a mouse or something and see if it gets detected.

Try going into your Device Manager and uninstall all the entries that are something along the lines of USB Root Hub then reboot with all USB Devices unplugged until after Windows detects and reinstalls the USB Root Hubs then plug in your MP3 Player and see if it is detected and installed properly.

Are you running Windows XP Service Pack 2? My MP3 player had problems with XP on Service Pack 1, upgraded to Service Pack 2 and no problems.

To see what version you have, Right Clcik My Computer and choose Properties.