mp3 Help

Okay, not sure if this is the right forum but here goes.

I bought my nieces and nephews (4 of them) an mp3 player for Christmas. While I would have preferred to get them an iPod, the fact I had to buy 4 of them and they didn't want the Shuffle meant I had to find one that "looked" like my Nano but was a wee bit cheaper (like about $80 cheaper).

So I did my research and found an MPIO MG100 that looks like a Nano and is, apparently, Mac compatible. I've tried TWO of them on my iMac and every time I connect the USB to the iMac and then to the MPIO, the MPIO appears on my desktop for about 2 seconds and then I get this error message:

The device you removed was not properly put away. Data might have been lost or damaged. Before you unplug your device, you must first select its Icon in the Finder and choose Eject from the File menu.

I've checked the system profiler and it appears there as MPIO MG100.

Any one have any idea why it won't work?? Could it be the USB cable??

Any help would be appreciated as I'm hoping I can get these to work for the kids!

Thanks!

'Shell

i had a similar problem on a windows machine with a creative hard drive mp3 player. if i connected it in the wrong order it would disconnect and reconnect at least once as i was starting to browse or copy files.

not sure if you're permanently hosed here or if it can be reset somehow, but you may have to do one or two things here.

for sure, you have to figure out how to get it to stay connected.
perhaps you should try a different cable, also you could try making sure the cable stays snug - maybe by making sure a bit of light latteral pressure stays constant on the connection to the player (probably just by lightly torquing/twisting or bending the cable near the connection).
you could also try connect and power on in different combos:
power on before connecting cable
power on after connecting cable

now the next bit i'm not sure of, but won't hurt anything...
you may also need to figure out how to trick the mac into thinking it's the first time you've connected the player.
try emptying all your caches with a tool like onyx before reconnecting the player(s). if you've never used the tool, no worries, its very easy to dl and use. its free as well.

if all else fails...
this is not necessarily the place you'll get lots of support and info on non-ipod mp3 players (i feel like the only one here sometimes who supports other players). i won't link the site, not sure how the mods would like that, but if you google "anythingbutipod" you'll find a place you will be able to get lots of support on non-ipod mp3 players.

Thanks for your reply.

I'll try connecting and powering on in a different order and see if that works.

I'll download onyx if that fails and see if that works.

I've tried 2 of the 4 players with 2 of the 4 USB cables and nothing works. I'm wondering if by some string of bad luck, both these cables are shot.

Thanks again for the help! Trust me, if I could have afforded to buy 4 iPods, that's what they would have got!

Merry ** ** and all that!

personally i got my sandisk player (and one for my wife) in preference to an ipod.

good luck!!!