In late August I upgraded/installed SP3. Prior to the upgrade I had two MP3 players: SanDisk/Sansa M240 and a Coby MPC885. Both are 1GB MP3 players. They both had many .mp3 songs on them. Last week I decided to add a couple of new songs to the SanDisk player, I connected it to the PC and surprisingly it showed "New hardware found". It identified it just fine and then prompted me to insert the disk. Noting the first time I had installed it I needed no disk as WinXP SP2 had all it needed. It came with no disk for the same reason. All of the above is true for the Coby MP3 player also. I let Windows search the internet for the appropriate driver and it found one but while trying to install it produced the following error message: "A service installation section of this INF file is invalid." I went to SanDisk's site where they have an updater. Tried to install it and it too produced the same error message. I went through the same exercise with the Coby player with the same results. Since the players are recognized they both are recognized as a generic mass storage devices but I cannot see the songs that are on it nor can I add or delete any that are on the players. They are in MSC mode or MTP mode. I can actually add files of any type but since there is a limited amount of space on the devices then I can only add so many and files of type that are mp3 are not shown in the playlist on the players. I have a second and older PC that I recently upgraded from Win98SE to WinXP Home SP2 and later installed SP3. It too does all of the above. Additionally on this PC I also have a Media Card reader with the same problem. So, anyone else have this problem or have yet to discover they have this issue or more importantly have found a workaround? My take is that the error message regarding the invalid INF file is due to having SP3 and so it is not recognized as a valid operating system during the installation. On the older PC I am going to use Ghost to return it to Win98SE, upgrade again to WinXP SP2 and leave it at that. I do expect all three USB devices to then work properly again on that PC. On the newer PC I am hoping someone here has already found a workaround to share with me. Thanks for reading, Bryan

Ok, I found a viable answer at: http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/boa... Quote Re: Sansa m240 MTP Device install problem!!! Options tomjr Newbie Posts: 1 Registered: 09-18-2007 Message 5 of 10 Viewed 13,650 times hey everyone, i have an m240 and it worked fine with my win xp pro until i reinstalled my windows then i encountered the "service installation in this inf" error. i just did some searching and i found another forum with someone with the same error with a different player brand. they posted this link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Lin... i downloaded the file, installed it, updated the m240 driver in the device manager, and the 'mtp device' installed correctly. The filename is "Microsoft_User-Mode_Driver_Framework_Install-v.1.0-WinXP.exe". hope this helps. End of quote Worked for me too! Regards, Bryan

And just FYI, you do NOT have to have Win98 installed before reinstalling the XP upgrade. As a matter of fact, it's best that you don't. Just start with a formatted HDD, pop in the XP upgrade CD & during the install, it will ask you to pop in the Win98 CD as proof of previous ownership. Once it's verified, remove the 98 CD & the XP install will continue. "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

Bryan - I'm curious to know if the SanDisk/Sansa M240 ever worked on your newly upgraded XP SP3 before you asked us HERE if it's OK to delete the $Uninstall folders? Regards i_Xp/VistaUser

Bryan I have XP SP3 as well as a Sansa/Sandisk M240 MP3 player. Just plugged the M240 into the XP machine and it Found New Hardware. It went ahead and installed the proper driver for the device and it works perfectly. Obviously the driver is housed within XP SP3.I would doubt that SP3 is your culprit in this case.

Sorry for the delay, Jam, I agree but wanted to retain several years of stuff I had/have on the the Win98 PC. Before upgrading to WinXP I had used Ghost to preserve it. I will leave that machine as it is. XpUser, Both MP3 players worked fine connected to the WinXP Pro machine prior to adding SP3 to it. I had never connected either player to the other older WinXP Home PC until after having the issue on the Pro one. Terii, Thanks for your input. Too bad the same was not true for me. I am now afraid to re-connect my Sony HandiCam using the Firewire connection. My problem has been sorted although it was using a workaround. Thanks, Bryan