Ask Dave Taylor: Tech and Business

Tuesday

USB Error on Samsung MP3 Player: Now What?

Dave, I have a Samsung YP-910GS hard drive mp3 player and it reciently stopped working. I tried to reload the firmware but when I connect it with USB the computer says unreckonized USB device. I know the hard drive is a 1.8" Toshiba, same as in the iPods, but it says the drive is an ATA drive? Is there a way I can check the disks for errors and repair it, if it is corrupted?

Assuming that the processes are the similar to the Samsung 920 player, there are actually two pieces of software that are important for the computer to be able to make use of your player; the firmware and the driver files themselves.

The firmware is the software that resides on the player. The drivers are a separate entity and are what Windows uses to recognize your player.

For example, when I go to Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove programs, what I see at the bottom is...