Connect Player : NW-A1000 device removed =(

[riverpug]

Hello all. A little help please, if you have an inkling.

I got my NW-A1000 some 5 days ago and loving every bit of it. It was actually an impulse buy to an extent. I saw it on the web and wanted to see it in real life, so I did and ended up getting a blue one. How can I resist it's sexiness?

I have what appears to be some software issues now. I'll try explain this in a chronological order (so each problem may not be directly related to one another sequencially).

When I first got it, I installed Connect Player and it worked good. I put about 1 gig worth of mp3/atrac on it. They still play too! so that's good.

The following day was good. I listened to it on the way to work and back. Happy as Larry and a sandboy. I came home and played around a bit more, and put on a bit more music. So far so good. I left it hooked up to PC overnight.

The following morning on the way to work I realised the battery sign was blinking...! Battery went flat on the return journey. This happened for 3 days in a row, and then I realised that it only recharges through the AC adapter. It appears that hooking it up to USB recharges only little, or even discharges it. I know the manual said Sleep/Hybernate modes drain battery, but my PC is using neither. But this was ok, I can just hook it up to AC power. No problem.

Then the following day not a lot happened. Then yesterday I tried to put some more music in it. The thing is, NW-A1000 device (on the left side list) remained greyed out (in Italic) in CONNECT software. So I can't sync with it. It just wouldn't recognize my walkman. In hardware listing in Control Panel -> System (winxp home) it lists an Unknown Device for this USB connection.

So I decided to reinstall Connect Player. I uninstalled it (alongside update and something else) and reinstalled through CD which results in downloading more updates to the latest version. No problem there.

Then again, it would still grey out my walkman. I went through this cycle of reinstallation many times, each time with a little difference. As for deleting folders, I can only find the SONY folder under program files. I did custom install into a D drive as well, and deleted the folders in each reinstall, but none worked. I used RegCleaner to remove sony entries too, between reinstalls. No difference there. Walkman always remained greyed out.

I can't seem to figure out where the database is stored. The database gets restored each reinstall! so it has to be somewhere. I still don't know where.

Then I was messing around in Connect Player thinking I might have missed an option, and unfortunately I right clicked on the then-greyed-out NW-A1000 and chose 'remove'. That removed the walkman entry completely.

Now I don't know how to get it back. I tried reinstalling again (enough times), but NW-A1000 entry just wouldn't return...!

----

So that's where I am now I have no clue what on earth and mars is going on. I can't put on more music now. I have about 2 gigs of stuff on it, so I'm happy enough for a while, but my god, this thing is really annoying me.

Has anyone gone through this? or know whats going on? or have an inkling? I know the problem is not clearly stated in this post, but that's because I myself don't even know where the problem begins and ends. I'm thinking perhaps all of this is related, or not. Or maybe they're symptoms of some other problem.

Thank you...

[Ascariss]

Welcome to the forums.

I wouldn't recommend keeping it hooked up to the PC, with just the USB, even though it does recharge the player, according to Sony, but it takes a full 7 hours. Use the AC adapter, 3 hours and its full charged, depending on the amount left in the battery.

The library is actually stored in the documents and settings part of windows.

First when you open windows explorer, make all hidden files visible.

Go to drive C (assuming windows is installed there),

>>>>documents and settings

>>>>All Users

>>>>Application Data

>>>>Sony Corporation

>>>>Library

once you go into teh library, you will see some folders, delete all of these in there once you have uninstalled CP. Remember to reboot then.

When you open CP and connect the A1000, the small A1000 doesn't appear? Try clicking on the transfer button that is in the top right hand corner, it looks like a small gameboy. Once the window is open, it should start reading the info from the A1000 library and checking it versus the library on the PC.

If it is doing that, then that means you can transfer music, it shouldn't take long, depending on the amount of files you have, takes about 5 minutes on my pc with around 550 files on both the A1000 and A3000.

[riverpug]

Welcome to the forums.

The library is actually stored in the documents and settings part of windows.

First when you open windows explorer, make all hidden files visible.

Go to drive C (assuming windows is installed there),

>>>>documents and settings

>>>>All Users

>>>>Application Data

>>>>Sony Corporation

>>>>Library

once you go into teh library, you will see some folders, delete all of these in there once you have uninstalled CP. Remember to reboot then.

Thank you for your reply Ascariss.

I was able to find that folder and deleted it as a part of uninstallation process. But it still doesn't seem to be it. When I install CP again, it says the database needs authenticating and rebuilding. You have to do this to get into CP. Last go, it did that again but funnily enough the database didn't rebuild. So I can see deleting the above-mentioned folder works, but somehow CP knows that it's an reinstall. I do delete the registry entries for all sony too.

There has to be something else... something that is still left in my PC after uninstall + aggressive deletion. Any ideas...? Drivers maybe, but I don't know what 1 and I don't know if drivers would be able to provide that much info.

When you open CP and connect the A1000, the small A1000 doesn't appear? Try clicking on the transfer button that is in the top right hand corner, it looks like a small gameboy.

That's right, the small A1000 does NOT appear. I removed it, as I described earlier, by right clicking on it and choosing 'remove'. I haven't seen it back since, no matter how many times I reinstall CP...!! It remembers somehow that I 'removed' it. The 'small gameboy' icon is greyed out so clicking on it has no response.

I would like to go back to talking about drivers again, because I've been noticing more about it. I think the drivers may not be installed correctly. (using winxp)

I went into this earlier, but I think this may be the crunch point. In System->Hardware->Device Manager, I expanded 'Universal Serial Bus Controllers'. There are some 9 or so entries. I noticed that one of them reads 'Unknown Device'. Upon double clicking it to check its state, it reports that the driver for it is not installed. In other words, my winxp is detecting my walkman, but there is no driver for it.

I used Update Drivers option to locate the driver, but so far it doesn't seem to take notice of the drivers on the CD.

So, I think the bottom line is that the driver is not installed to deal with my walkman.

Where do I go from here? Usually with any hardware there is a way to manually install drivers by finding INF file or otherwise. Any ideas?

EDIT:

When you first install CP, it asks you for which part of the world you are from. It then sets the store to your region. How do you change that once you pick a country? Where is that info stored? I haven't been asked to pick one since the very first install.

Edited December 14, 2005 by riverpug

[Themib]

Thank you for your reply Ascariss.

I was able to find that folder and deleted it as a part of uninstallation process. But it still doesn't seem to be it. When I install CP again, it says the database needs authenticating and rebuilding. You have to do this to get into CP. Last go, it did that again but funnily enough the database didn't rebuild. So I can see deleting the above-mentioned folder works, but somehow CP knows that it's an reinstall. I do delete the registry entries for all sony too.

There has to be something else... something that is still left in my PC after uninstall + aggressive deletion. Any ideas...? Drivers maybe, but I don't know what 1 and I don't know if drivers would be able to provide that much info.

That's right, the small A1000 does NOT appear. I removed it, as I described earlier, by right clicking on it and choosing 'remove'. I haven't seen it back since, no matter how many times I reinstall CP...!! It remembers somehow that I 'removed' it. The 'small gameboy' icon is greyed out so clicking on it has no response.

I would like to go back to talking about drivers again, because I've been noticing more about it. I think the drivers may not be installed correctly. (using winxp)

I went into this earlier, but I think this may be the crunch point. In System->Hardware->Device Manager, I expanded 'Universal Serial Bus Controllers'. There are some 9 or so entries. I noticed that one of them reads 'Unknown Device'. Upon double clicking it to check its state, it reports that the driver for it is not installed. In other words, my winxp is detecting my walkman, but there is no driver for it.

I used Update Drivers option to locate the driver, but so far it doesn't seem to take notice of the drivers on the CD.

So, I think the bottom line is that the driver is not installed to deal with my walkman.

Where do I go from here? Usually with any hardware there is a way to manually install drivers by finding INF file or otherwise. Any ideas?

EDIT:

When you first install CP, it asks you for which part of the world you are from. It then sets the store to your region. How do you change that once you pick a country? Where is that info stored? I haven't been asked to pick one since the very first install.

←

It does look like 'windows' is not seeing your player.

Can you see it in windows explorer or the device manager?

[Spacecase]

Bit of a long shot this but have you tried plugging in to a different USB port (assuming you have more than one) it might start up Windows hardware installation wizard, also if your using XP have you tried a system restore from before you 'removed' the unit, if you have corrupted or deleted drivers this may bring them back.

I had major compatibility issues with my A1000 and my onboard USB2 ports, no matter what i did i couldn't get a good connection, it kept corrupting music files on transfer, eventually fitted a PCI USB2 card which cured the problem.

btw

mobo is a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 with VIA chipset

[Ascariss]

Indeed, try another USB port, I had to pick up a USB 2.0 card as well since my digicam needed it, so it came in handy when I got the A3000.

This is odd though, my pc recongizes both the A1000 and A3000, as does CP and it has no problems opening the right transfer window as well.

[riverpug]

I have found a workaround. Not a solution yet, but it works.

I dug out an old laptop from 1997 (Pentium 200...!) which has USB port at the back and installed XP on it. It took like 2 hours. But anyway, I plugged in my walkman and tadaah it shows up as "Mass Storage Device" in USB section of Device Manager (control panel). After sluggishly installing Connect on it, I was able to confirm that it does work. The trouble was, my laptop has USB 1.1, not USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is like over 40 times faster...

Equipped with the knowledge that Sony Walkman doesn't use proprietary driver, but rather a bog standard windows mass storage device driver, I decided to change the angle of attack in solving this problem. I went to google and looked for various combo of keywords, which have nothing to do with Sony (one of them being "USB 2.0 and unknown device"). It so turns out, there are a lot of people out there who have issues with hard drive based mass storage device connecting through USB port.

There are various issues which could lead to this problem, and for me I still don't quite know. I have tried pretty much everything suggested like updating flash bios on motherboard and so on. None solved it so far. So I did one thing I knew that would work, which is to go into BIOs at bootup and disable USB 2.0 support, but leave 1.1 enabled. This way, the USB ports become the old 1.1 standard, which is the same as my laptop on which my walkman worked.

So that's how it is now. The speed isn't too bad really... to put a 5 meg MP3 onto it I guess it takes about 20 secs, about 4-5 mins to put an album in. For me this is acceptable since I'm incrementally adding songs rather than putting everything in at once.

So what's causing all this for me. I'm not sure. My NO.1 suspect is the power. Apparently a mass storage device that runs on hard disks consume a lot of power and some older combination of components don't guarantee sufficient power through USB 2.0. Perhaps buying a new motherboard or adding a PCI based USB 2.0 card solves this by ensuring the power is there. Apparently this problem wouldn't happen if the device is powered by wall socket (AC adapter) while connecting to PC, but as you know A1000 only allows connecting to AC or PC, not both at once.

My next step in this endevour, which I shall try sometime in the future, is to buy a PCI USB card. Until then, I have to drop my PC to USB 1.1 everytime I need to put songs on it. A bit annoying but A1000 sounds too good, I can tolerate some suffering. I'm keeping my old iPod 40gig for its capacity as its good for an extended away days, but for regular commuting I'll never go back to it (buying A1000 was an impulse buy and somewhat experimental too...!). I use Etymotic ER4P earbuds, and I'm impressed by a1000 - the difference is too clear to ignore. I sometimes think of getting A3000 since I ended up loving A1000 and I want the benefit of the greater capacity, but I don't know. I'd feel a bit stupid so I won't. Or I might, I don't know. But anyway. For commuting 6 gigs is more than enough.

P.S. I guess I could try one of those USB hubs that comes with an AC adapter to power itself - it'd be cheaper than buying a PCI USB card.

[maxoufromthebronx]

I am having a similar issue with my NWA-1000

Connect Player doesn't recognizes my device any longer

I have installed CP first and it did recognize my walkman,as my installation wasn't done properly I reinstalled CP.

Before reinstalling i deleted the walkmann icon in CP (in the top left list)

Then when i reinstalled CP it wouldn't recognize the device any more.

Another important point is that my computer recognize the device and reflects it as an external drive (But you can't copy files in the player directly as it wouldn't be able to read these)

I am going to get rid of these 2 devices I bot for my brothers because CP is really crap, I never had issues with Ipod software so I will just exchange these for nano's.

This is really a shame as the NWA-1000 looked good.

Should you have any quick fix to the problem then please let me know

Thanks

Edited December 26, 2005 by maxoufromthebronx

[Pheonix90]

I am also having this issue, i managed to get the device working on my Windows 2000 computer, which is networked to this one (XP), but all my files are on this one and CONNECT does not seem to like adding files from networks, I dont want to transfer them all to my other computer.

I tried disabling USB 2.0 but no luck. When ever I try to install the driver it just gives the error: 'A service installation section in this INF is invalid.' and says that the device may not work correctly. I read on some other forums that someone found a solution on google, but thats just lead me to here for now.

Any have any idea?

Edited December 26, 2005 by Pheonix90

[C_player]

I may be a little rusty on my hardware troubleshooting, but if you have your XP and PC/motherboard install CDs lying around you may want to give this idea a shot...

Disclaimer: If you aren't comfortable messing around with drivers, XP installs, or re-installing operating systems if something goes wrong, these help tips are not for you. Serious things happen when you remove critical drivers, so be warned that following the advice below could leave you without a functional PC. A PS2 mouse and keyboard are strongly recommended before proceeding.

1. Disconnect all USB devices that aren't critical. In short, if it isn't your mouse or keyboard it should be unplugged (this is especially true of hubs).

2. Go to My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager

3. Find the items that say "Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller" or "USB Host Controller" under the Universal Serial Bus Controllers section. There may be 2 or 3 of these entries.

4. One at a time, highlight each controller and choose Uninstall.

5. If prompted to reboot, don't do so until you've removed all the items.

6. Reboot.

7. After XP returns, let it detect these controllers and setup the USB devices again.

8. If you have installed any service packs to XP, you'll want to use those drivers instead of the original XP or PC drivers

9. Another reboot may be required now, depending on your setup.

10. After all is working, plug in each USB device one-at-a-time. Notice which ones work and which ones show error messages. This should be the key that shows you which ones have conflicts with your system.

This isn't an end-all-be-all solution, but it can help in some cases find out if you have a bad device that needs more power, more signal, or has something wrong with it that is causing everything else to fail.

[riverpug]

For me, the revelation was that it was USB problem. For a while I thought it was drivers or software, or even the walkman's hardware itself.

At any rate, if you narrowed down the problem to USB, you may want to visit EverythingUSB site, which is dedicated in discussing USB. I think the FAQ and forum there had a walk through on various ways to "clear up" drivers issues. But, bear in mind my earlier finding that Sony walkman does not use its own proprietary drivers, but rather a bog standard Mass Storage device drivers in windows system32 folder (drivers folder I think). It also talks about explicitely giving the device a letter in the computer management. and so on so forth, but I'm sure your problems are all unique so what can I say.

I'd do everything I can to narrow down the problem if I were you. I find my way out (accidentally might I add) doing that, although the answer turned out to be rather peculiar.