MP3 players forum: Problems with my Matsui MAT105MR MP3 Player.

Hi Terestemo,

The description you've provided basically points to corrupt firmware but rather than immediately trying to re-install this I'd first suggest that you go ahead and try to reformat the MP3.

I believe I'm correct in saying there's nothing to lose because when you're in this situation the data on your MP3 is usually unrecoverable, so you've lost the files on it anyway.

The steps to take are as follows:

- Connect the MP3 as usual but don't click on D: (you need to reformat the MP3 using a different route)
- Assuming your OS is WinXP or similar, select "My Computer"
- Right mouse click on My Computer and select "Manage"
- Expand the option "Storage" (if it isn't already) and select "Disk Management"
- You should now see in the bottom right window a representation of all the devices connected to your PC

*** WARNING: If you've never done this before, you need to follow the next few steps very carefully ***
- Right mouse click on the device that corresponds to your "Removable" storage device [you said it was on D so look for the one with the label (D:)] and select "Format". Double check that this is the drive letter assciated with your MP3 because you must not make the mistake of refomatting your hard drive (usually mapped to C:)
- The next step should be a warning panel, say Yes to that
- This next panel gives you a final chance to check that you're refomatting the correct device because it will carry the title "Format D:" (in your particular case).
- Against the selection "File Syetem" choose FAT32
- Leave "Allocation unit size" on default
- Choose "Perform a quick format" and click OK
- Disconnect your MP3 in the usual way and check to see if it can start up as normal

If the above doesn't work, let me know I'll point you to information about re-flashing firmware.

Cheers,

Hi,

You'll find several copies of the firmware that should work for the 105MR under this post.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7595_102-0.html?forumID=71&threadID=218044&messageID=2320425

Just do an advanced search under the thread in question for "rapidshare" and you should find it.

OR, click on this link http://www.fatsquirrel.org/veghead/wot/matsui.php and read through the info there.

But a word of caution. It's looks as though the 105MR hasn't had a firmware download attempted but I think you've got nothing to lose in your situation.

Best of luck,

Hi Urban_Spaceman,

Before you go ahead with perhaps an unnecessary re-flash could you let me know if I've understood your situation correctly:

Note, I'm not familiar with Vista so some of the terms that follow may not align.

1) You initially tried to reformat your MP3 by right-clicking (and selected Format..) against the drive mapping associated with your device. This failed.

2) You then tried the reformat routine under My Computer, Manage and this also failed (with what error message?).

3) You say you could? or still can? download files to your player.

4) If you can't download files at the moment, let me know how your MP3 file system is described in the Computer Management panel, under Disk Management. Is it described as 'healthy' or 'unreadable'?

5) If you can currently access your MP3 via the USB link and yet it fails to start with the error message you describe, do the following. Move all the files you have on the MP3 to a folder on the PC, in other words make sure your MP3 player is empty of all files and then restart using battery power only. Is the result the same? Does it fail to start and you receive the same error message?

PLAYER TRIES TO BOOT BUT HALTS AT DRIVE CHECKING

With my player this has happened when a battery died while playing or while closing the device. I now regularly change batteries (with the device turned off) before they go flat and stick to Duracells -- and mean to buy some NIMH rechargeables.

FIX: Connect it to your computer's USB socket and wait for the backlight to come on. When the screen says Ready, open My Computer.

In My Computer right click on the drive letter corresponding to your player, select Properties then Tools and check the player's drive for errors. Do not tick the option to automatically fix things.

When this completes, remove the player using the facility to safely remove USB devices (see Windows Task Bar icon).

Then power up the MP3 player -- it will takes some time to check the disk and (with luck) rebuild the database and the normal menus will reappear.

Reconnect to computer and load a few tracks into the Playlist folder. If they load normally, you have fixed the problem (for the time being)

I've tested this, repeatedly going back and loading more folders successfully.

PLAYER STICKS AT DRIVE CHECKING AND WINDOWS REPORTS FILE CORRUPTION

This condition doesn't prevent the player appearing as a drive in Windows -- but produces a Windows error message about file corruption and you cannot see the directories (folders) on the player. Trying to run Windows disk utilities hangs the program.

The only recourse is to start a DOS box within Windows. Go Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt. At the prompt type CHKDSK /F and after a pause screen will report that the disk is FAT or FAT32. Wait and you may be rewarded with a window full of text as files are "fixed" (actually they are not) and you are invited then to convert clusters to files. Respond in the affirmative and the player disk structure should be rendered once more accessible in Windows -- though you will notice that much of your data has been lost (in my case 3gig was reduced to about 1gig).

Many tracks may have been saved and should play when you disconnect the player and it starts normally which, hopefully, it will. You can decide at this point whether to leave the remaining tracks and attempt adding more - or, as I would recommend, format the player (see below).

IF THE PLAYER BOOTS UP BUT NEW TRACKS CANNOT BE ADDED SUCCESSFULLY.

Issues with this model have arisen when loading new tracks. Previously I thought this might be faulty flash memory or because the designers failed to update the device fully to USB2 fast standards.

Windows was closing the file transfer progress bar, but a glance at the screen of the MP3 player showed it was still writing.

The problem seemed to be solved by waiting for the word Ready to appear before loading more tracks or removing the drive from the computer (using remove safely as mentioned above).

But occasionally the player would display the Ready message improbably early in the transfer. The Windows transfer bar would sit stuck at Xminutes and eventually a message would appear saying that delayed write had failed and the data had been lost.

This would would freeze the computer until the player was disconnected.


FIX: As per previous issue, connect the player to the PC and open My Computer.

When the MP3 player appears on the list of drives, first try to copy any music files on the player to your hard disk. (In extremis, this may not work and may lock up Windows until you remove the MP3 player and start again).

Next click on the player's properties in My Computer and select Tools. Run the check the drive for errors sequence (again do not tick fix errors)

Try to load some new files. If no joy go back Properties and this time select Format and make sure you specify Fat32 (not NTFS).

Formatting takes seconds and once you disconnect the player from the PC, with a battery in it will boot, check the disk and rebuild its database. To add your music back to the player -- connect the USB and drag and drop from where you saved your files on the PC hard drive.

Hello, I have a matsui mp3 105mr 512mb, but is completely dead, not either winxp or win7 recognize it, i don't know what to do, i try the firmware from http://www.fatsquirrel.org/veghead/wot/matsui.php but i get this error message:

"A device has been detected in recovery mode and is being initialized..." and then" unable to write file data"...
:'( what can i do??

i don't want to buy another...plzzzzzzzz helpme!!

if no machine recognizes it, I lost it? I can not fix it electronically? I do not buy one again, please i pray for any help