Emreson emp312-1 mp3 player comes up unk...

i am trying to put songs on an emerson emp312-1 mp3 player for a friend's son. instructions say to plug it in and it wil download automatically. says it downloaded driver but gives the message that it is an unknown device. i am running the basic package windows vista. i checked in the my computer screen in the device manager and even tried to sync the device in the media player but it does not exsist anywhere on my computer. i called their customer support and got the lame response to reboot my computer with the device already plugged in. i tried having my device manager search the net for an updated driver and it says that the best driver for the device is already installed or that it doesn't need one. it still gives the message that it is an unknown device. is it a bad unit or is there something else i can do to fix it.