Trouble with the Recording Feature

[FourJacks]

Hello all,

I'm new and Junk. I purchased a 1GB mp4 player from a Hong Kong place on ebay (Looks like a NANO). for my wife a couple months ago, and everything worked great so just yesterday I got my very own 4GB version from an ebayer in New Jersey.

Everything seems to function except the record feature.
when I scroll to the record option and hit the "M" button to select record the MP4 player resets, (Hour Glass screen back to main menu)

Firmware screen says
SC85051f
2006/04/25
ACI_V3.5.35

I've read on here about the hacked 4GB players. So I did this to test it.

1)I loaded as much as I could on to it (still haven't burnt all my CD's)
2)I went to windows explorer and hit properties on the flashdrive E:
It said there were 302MB on the player
3)I loaded 152 MB worth of pictures to the player
4)Rechecked the E: and it said it had 454MB on it.

I'm hoping that is enough to verify it's 4GB's without downloading any programs.

So does anyone know about the Recorder??
Also is there an english manual, Mine is translated so poorly it's not funny

Thanks

[lattesurf]

FourJacks, try extracting, repairing and re-flashing your existing firmware back into your player. See if the problem still persists.
It could be that might be some hardware issues with the processor thingy.

You have 2 ways of testing your player's real memory capacity, either by filling it up with mp3s & movie files to the maximum and make sure the last few files being copied in plays correctly. Or the faster way would be to format the player using the Disk Tool or HP Format Tool.

But seems like there is no evidence of 4GB players in the market currently, be prepared if you end up with much lesser memory capacity originally. Either way, contact your seller if either problem occurs.

[tadad1]

FourJacks,
It could be a hardware problem, but if you bought the player as a 4GB it is most likely a hack problem as the ATJ2085 chip that powers 90% of these players will only support a maximum of 2GB memory.

Unfortunatly loading 500MB of files to it is not going to tell because it could be a 1 or 2GB hacked chip. Problems only generally start showing once you start loading over the chips true size.

If you remove all the files from your player then go to the settings menu on your player and select Memory Info how much space is used with no files on the player?

You are going to need to verify the chips true size before you can find where the problem lies.

[FourJacks]

Umm... all that is kinda forgein to me..
So I need to download a program?
to fix the firmware?

Well to be honest, I would be okay with a partial refund and a 2GB nano.

makes me wonder if my wifes is really 1GB .. =(

[tadad1]

FourJacks, I would not worry about your firmware at present. I suggest you download MP3 Player Utilities HERE You are going to need it to convert video etc.
When you have installed it connect your player to your PC, then open the MP3 Player Disk Tool which is part of the MP3 Player Utilities. Go to the Partition Encrypt tab and move the slider all the way right and apply which will format your player. Once that is done move the slider all the way back left and then format again. Your chip should now be recognised as it's true size.
Then try the record function again.

[FourJacks]

Cool, thanks for the detailed explanation!

I will have to wait till tonight to do that, unfortunetly I don't have any install priviledges at work >=( (darn that IT guy)

Should I back up my system or anything?
this format is a pretty safe thing to do??

sorry for the newbie questions.

[tadad1]

FourJacks, Formating is quite safe as your firmware is written to disk in a locked area. But if you want any of the files on the player remove them first otherwise they will be erased. What does the Settings>Memory Info read on your player?

[lattesurf]

The Settings >> Memory Info does not really tell if a chip's been hacked or not. My previous player which was a hacked 2GB to show 4GB, shows the exact amount of data that was copied into the player (ie copied 100MB of files, Memory Info tells me 100MB is occupied).

But if the memory is hacked, usually the Memory Info would take an extremely long time to show. Before i removed the hack, it hanged about almost 10 secs before it showed. After i removed the hack, the Memory Info appears almost instantly. i think some others experienced hanging whilst accessing the Memory Info.

[tadad1]

lattesurf, Thanks for the verification, I had read a past post that suggested that the bogus memory showed as used space.
Cheers

[FourJacks]

Hmmm...
According to windows the E:/ has 513MB on it and 3.48GB of free space.

the little screen I get when I hit memory info on it only says
4087M 87%

I'm confused.