Programmatically accessing the contents of a Sony MP3 player

Question

How to access/manipulate Sony MP3 player’s contents programmatically?..

A Sony Walkman MP3 player (NWZ-W202) is connected to a Vista Ultimate PC through a USB port.

The player contents is visible by the Windows Explorer as “Computer\WALKMAN NWZ-W202\Storage Media\MUSIC\MediaFile1.mp3”.

Computer Management\Storage\Disk Management lists the device as a nameless volume with “Healthy (EISA Configuration)” Status, but would not let do anything with it (like “Change Drive Volume and Paths...”, as the context menu comes out empty of action entries.

And, of course, there is nothing useful coming out of the following code:

foreach (DriveInfo driveInfo in DriveInfo.GetDrives())
    Console.WriteLine(driveInfo.Name);

Quick web search revealed similar unsolved problems with Sony Walkman devices:

experts-exchange.com/Storage/Misc/Q_24422039.html

social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/cc1e7050-5c44-4eb4-97e7-8edfdb42f24d

Thanks.

Answer 1

It sounds like this player is connecting via MTP (media transfer protocol) instead of MSC (don't know what it stands for, but means that you see a drive letter). Some MP3 players (Samsung, Sansa) can be switched between modes.

Here are some posts written about connecting to and transferring files to a from an MTP device :

Connecting to a WPD device -- http://blogs.msdn.com/dimeby8/archive/2006/09/27/774259.aspx

Sending MTP commands through WPD part 1 -- http://blogs.msdn.com/dimeby8/archive/2006/10/04/Sending-MTP-commands-through-WPD-%5F2800%5FPart-1%5F2900%5F.aspx

Sending MTP commands through WPD part 2 -- http://blogs.msdn.com/dimeby8/archive/2006/10/13/sending-mtp-commands-through-wpd-part-2-data-to-the-device.aspx

Sending MTP commands through WPD part 3 -- http://blogs.msdn.com/dimeby8/archive/2006/10/16/sending-mtp-commands-through-wpd-part-3-data-from-device.aspx

Good Luck!