Sansa automatically erasing files?

Hi, the Sansa E260 is a portable MP3 player released by SanDisk in 2004. Several problems may cause the E260 to not function as intended from time to time. Common problems that occur are the device freezing, album art not appearing on the screen when a song is playing, pictures not filling the screen size and missing information on the separate tracks. You can troubleshoot the device and fix many of these common problems without the need of a service technician.

Reset
1. The Sansa E260 may freeze or function in other unexpected ways from time to time. This generally occurs when the unit's software has developed an error. Reset the device to clear the error and return the device to normal working operation. A unit reset is similar to rebooting your computer. You won't lose any data stored on your device.

To reset the E260, press and hold the "Power/Menu" button for about 15 seconds. The device will be forced to power down, during which the error will be cleared. You can restart the E260 as normal once the reset is complete.
Album Art Does Not Display
2. The E260 supports viewing album art on the display screen during the playing of a song. You may find that your album art is not showing up on the display when music is playing on the device. To fix this, make sure the associated album art file is in the same folder as the song being played. You will need to connect the E260 into your computer to move the album art files into the music folder.
Photos Aren't Full-Screen
3. Photos displayed on the E260 will not show up as full-screen shots if they are not cropped to the correct dimensions. The E260 software does not support stretching pictures to fit the full screen. To ensure your photographs will display on the full screen, crop the images to 128x64 in photo-editing software prior to transferring the image on the E260.
Unknown Artist or Album
4. The E260 displays information about each song using the ID3 tags associated with each track. ID3 tags hold information such as the artist name, album name, track number, year it was released and other information. If the E260 shows an artist or album as unknown, the information in the ID3 tag was not filled in. You can insert information into the ID3 tags from your computer.

To change the ID3 information, right-click on the music file and choose "Properties." Click on the "Summary" tab and choose "Advanced." The ID3 fields will display in the window. Insert any of the missing information and click "OK." When you upload the song onto your E260, the newly inserted information will show up in the display.

Hope it helped...

Go into settings, change the USB mode to MTP then connect to PC. Select the player from My Computer, go into the music file and delete the songs. When finished deleting disconnect player restart player, then reconnect to sync new files.

http://www.sansaworld.com/
http://www.sansaworldmp3.com/

To reformat:
There are two ways to format an Mp3 player - one on the computer itself, and one in Windows Media Player. Both methods will end up erasing all the songs on the player, but the player will be "good as new" after that. Sometimes reformatting in this manner will override the player's native formatting and cause problems - this can be reversed in most cases by updating the player's firmware. Firmware upgrades are available from most manufacturers' websites.

WARNING: The following procedures will erase all songs on the player.

Check if the file system is NTFS. If yes, format it to FAT or FAT32. - Connect player to computer, double-click my computer, right click on icon of mp3 player and select format. This only applies to Windows-based computers.
You can also format the player in Windows Media Player itself:
Connect your Mp3 player to the computer and open Windows Media Player. Click on the Sync tab. Pull down the drop down menu underneath the Sync tab by moving your cursor over the Sync tab and left clicking on the little black arrow underneath the Sync tab. Highlight "name of Mp3 player here 1GB" (wording may vary slightly), and then select "Format." - this should erase everything.
-Tha Mp3 Doctor

Download the Sansa Recovery Tool from the Sansa website.
Format - Erases Everything: Connect your Sansa player to the computer and open Windows Media Player. Click on the Sync tab. Pull down the drop down menu underneath the Sync tab by moving your cursor over the Sync tab and left clicking on the little black arrow underneath the Sync tab. Highlight "Sansa 1GB" (wording may vary slightly), and then select "Format." - this should erase everything.
Firmware Upgrade- Erases Everything: Get the latest firmware upgrade from Sansa - it updates the firmware and erases every song in the player all at once. Note: this method doesn't work if already have the latest firmware. Go to this website and click "Firmware Updater" to find out: http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/DriverDownloads.aspx
-Tha Mp3 Doctor

What format are the files and Does your computer recognize your player? You may not have the right format; Sansa's MP3/MP4 players support different formats. But, Check out the "loading Content" section of the user's manual for multiple ways on how your can load the music files into your player. Link below:

Sansa e200_userguide_en.pdf

1. plug in Sansa to computer
2. Open My computer
3. Click on your Sansa
3. Click MUSIC
4. Delete the songs you dont want on it...if that folder is empty make sure you have windows showing all the hidden files... use windows media player and go to sync and put songs there..hope that help..

Try this: disconnect the player from the computer, hold in the volume + button, and reconnect the player to the computer while holding the volume + button in. Keep holding the volume + button for an additional 5-50 seconds. Windows should eventually go into recovery mode and revive the player- it will pop up a window that says Found New Hardware Wizard.
-----
Download the Sansa Recovery Tool from the Sansa website.
Format - Erases Everything: Connect your Sansa player to the computer and open Windows Media Player. Click on the Sync tab. Pull down the drop down menu underneath the Sync tab by moving your cursor over the Sync tab and left clicking on the little black arrow underneath the Sync tab. Highlight "Sansa 1GB" (wording may vary slightly), and then select "Format." - this should erase everything.
Firmware Upgrade- Erases Everything: Get the latest firmware upgrade from Sansa - it updates the firmware and erases every song in the player all at once. Note: this method doesn't work if already have the latest firmware. Go to this website and click "Firmware Updater" to find out: http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/DriverDownloads.aspx
or
http://www.sandisk.com/DriverDownload/driverList.asp
-Tha Mp3 Doctor

Try this: disconnect the player from the computer, hold in the volume + button, and reconnect the player to the computer while holding the volume + button in. Keep holding the volume + button for an additional 5-50 seconds. Windows should eventually go into recovery mode and revive the player- it will pop up a window that says Found New Hardware Wizard.
-----
Download the Sansa Recovery Tool from the Sansa website.
Format - Erases Everything: Connect your Sansa player to the computer and open Windows Media Player. Click on the Sync tab. Pull down the drop down menu underneath the Sync tab by moving your cursor over the Sync tab and left clicking on the little black arrow underneath the Sync tab. Highlight "Sansa 1GB" (wording may vary slightly), and then select "Format." - this should erase everything.
Firmware Upgrade- Erases Everything: Get the latest firmware upgrade from Sansa - it updates the firmware and erases every song in the player all at once. Note: this method doesn't work if already have the latest firmware. Go to this website and click "Firmware Updater" to find out: http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/DriverDownloads.aspx
or
http://www.sandisk.com/DriverDownload/driverList.asp

-Tha Mp3 Doctor

Hi moogle. Normally a 4GB player should hold about 1000 songs, but then again there are disclaimers from companies that it depends on the file format and the length of the songs that you download to the player. For example, an MP3 file is twice as large as a WMA file, etc. Well, granted you're downloading songs of about 3-4 minutes average length, then there may be a possibility that some corruption has taken place in the memory of the player. You may need to format the player to completely remove these corruptions. Here's how to format your E260: (1) Set your player to MSC mode by navigating its Menu as follows: Menu > Settings > USB Mode > ..select "MSC" (2) Plug your E260 to your computer (are you using Windows XP or ME?). Your Operating System should recognize the player as a "Removable Disk" and will be assigned a drive letter. (3) Right-click on the drive letter corresponding to your Sansa E260, then select "Format" (4) When the Format window appears, make sure that the file system type is set to "FAT32", and that the "Quick Format" checkbox at the bottom of the window remains un-checked. Click "Start " to begin the process and follow the on-screen prompts. Formatting the player, though, will erase all your files but will clear the player of any corruption. Make a back up if you wish before formatting. (5) Unplug your player and switch the mode back to MTP if you like. MTP is used for subscription songs while MSC is generally used for non-licensed songs (like songs from Limewire, songs ripped from CD's, etc.). (6) Transfer your songs again to the player I hope this helps. Normally this would solve the little glitches in your player. If it doesn't, leet me know... there may be another solution I could offer. Syd :)

if your sanas e260 does'n syncronize with your computer or say data base..., take the battery out and conect it with out the battery.