I just plugged in my sansa m230 and loaded some songs on it. After I was done, I unplugged it and the screen keeps flashing back and forth from "initializing" to a screen that says " Sansa m230 512 MB". I am also not able to shut it off and when I try plugging the usb back into the laptop, the icon doesn't show up anymore to. So now I can't load more songs or even play them. What should I do?

Try reflashing the firmware for your device you can find the latest firmware and flashing utilities from the manufacturer?s website. Make sure that you back your music up first because when you do this you are setting it back to factory settings. Then add music this way and see if it is works: 1. Free a USB port on your desktop computer. Now, grab the USB cable for your SanDisk Sansa MP3 player and connect the player to your computer. 2. Wait for your computer to find and recognize the player. This may take a few moments. Once you receive a confirmation message, open your computer and scan the icons for the SanDisk MP3 player. 3. Open the SanDisk Sansa MP3 player on your computer. The music files that you currently have saved to the player?s memory are displayed. 4. Open a folder containing music files that is stored in your desktop computer?s memory. Scan the files for songs that you want to transfer to the SanDisk Sansa MP3 player. 5. Left-click on a song file and drag to the SanDisk Sansa window. Drop the file and let your computer complete the transfer. The transferred file appears at the bottom of your music list. 6. Unplug your SanDisk Sansa player from your computer. Turn the player on and allow the file transfer to update to the internal memory of the MP3 player.

Check to make sure you stll have your driver for the player on your computer. If that does not work try reflashing the firmware for your device you can find the latest firmware and flashing utilities from the manufacturer?s website. Make sure that you back your music up first because when you do this you are setting it back to factory settings. After doing this if you still cant add music on your player try loading it this way: 1. Free a USB port on your desktop computer. Now, grab the USB cable for your SanDisk Sansa MP3 player and connect the player to your computer. 2. Wait for your computer to find and recognize the player. This may take a few moments. Once you receive a confirmation message, open your computer and scan the icons for the SanDisk MP3 player. 3. Open the SanDisk Sansa MP3 player on your computer. The music files that you currently have saved to the player?s memory are displayed. 4. Open a folder containing music files that is stored in your desktop computer?s memory. Scan the files for songs that you want to transfer to the SanDisk Sansa MP3 player. 5. Left-click on a song file and drag to the SanDisk Sansa window. Drop the file and let your computer complete the transfer. The transferred file appears at the bottom of your music list. 6. Unplug your SanDisk Sansa player from your computer. Turn the player on and allow the file transfer to update to the internal memory of the MP3 player.

Slide the HOLD switch to the left

To free space on it all you have to do is delete a few songs.

To delete songs:
Plug it into your computer, launch Windows Media Player and click the "Sync" tab. A list of songs in the player will appear in folders on the right side of the screen. Expand the folder if you need to, then right-click on each song you want to remove from the player and click "Remove From Device". Hope this helps you

I'm pretty sure m230 is supposed to play WMA files, but I don't use that format. Drop a MP3 file in the Audible folder and make sure it plays. xlthim.

WHo knows what the Mac may have done. Try changing the USB setting from Auto to MSC.

I bought a sandisk and it came with best buy stuff loaded. Well best buy stuff expired and i have a lot of memory tied uop with it. I want to totaly reformat and remove all related stuff to best buy so I can start from scratch

rename the files with numbers at the beginning, like 001, 002, etc - time-consuming, but effective

Double-check WMP configurations

Hi, Try formating the sansa first. You can do so by clicking on "My computer" and then right click on the sansa drive and "Format". It will help in case the 20th song was in an invalid format. Let me know if it helped. D.