Mp3 On Flash Drive Won't Play

[frog]

I just copied a bunch of mp3's to my new flash, edited the file by the title of the song so they would be more easily found on the flash. Then copied the flash to the hard drive as a back up copy, now W7 media player won't play the song, either on the flash or the pc. The Windows player just comes up with an error screen that it can't play the song. These same songs play fine on the pc from various other folders, so I think the mp3 file is OK. So what happened! The flash copies fine and shows to be FAT. And then the flash copy to the hd won't play either. I also tried using VLC player and it too won't play. Both of these players work perfectly on all of my other music and videos. All input is appreciated.

[Geek-9pm]

Do you still have the original files? Do lithe originals work OK?

[frog]

YES!  I have the originals in the same folder and they all work just fine with either player.  There are 312 songs in this flash which I had edited the song title so they would be alphabetic in their folder.  That's all I did. 

[Geek-9pm]

Renaming a file should be harmless. Unless somehow the extension got changed. Also, renaming a file invokes permission issues.

I think you lost the extension when you renamed the files.

Can you provide some more details?  Why did you have to rename the files to build a list? You can make a list of files without actually renaming the files shirtsleeves. In fact, you can have multiple lists of the files by categories. These are called playlists. Or. you can have a folder of shortcuts. Or even shortcuts without a folder. You can rename shortcuts.
Suppose you have a song named:
I Love The Rain, Alice Cooper
In the came folder you could create a number of shortcuts to the same file and rename each.
Shortcut  I Love The Rain, Alice Cooper(1)
Cooper, Alice - I love the tain
Alice cooper, I l Love The Rain
Rain, I love - Alice Cooper

Just a suggestion. Renaming a shortcut does not risk the original file. An it is more versatile.

[frog]

Hey Geek - thanks for your help here.  I edited the song names to the title so that I could easily browse the folder (flash or hd) in case I was looking for a particular song for some reason.  Most of them had the artist first, or a track number.  This is my first time doing this with W7 but the process seemed to be no different than when I've done this with XP.  I just edited the MP3 file name for the song title.  I don't know anything about permissions either.  I've done this before in XP and no problems.  I sure would hate to go back again through all of these songs (312) to make a new folder for my flash.  I use the flash in the car radio, or can pull it out and use it in my portable MP3 player with speakers.  By looking at a particular MP3 file, what do I look for to see if, and what might be corrupted?  Your input is appreciated.

Jim

[Geek-9pm]

Select a song, right click, then select properties.  It should show the type of file. If it is not identified as a MP3 file, you did something bother than change the file name.

[frog]

Here is the file and it looks OK to me. 

[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]

[Geek-9pm]

That looks good and and it is in your desktop. It plays OK?
Does the file have the same properties when you look in the USB flash drive? Did the properties change?
What error message do you get when you try to play the file in the USB drive with VLC?
Does the USB flash play in your computer but not in your card radio?

[frog]

Here's an update on this mess.  The flash plays just fine in the MP3 as well as the car radio.  I copied the entire flash files to a temporary file on the desk top and they DO NOT PLAY.  I copied one of the songs from the hd to the temporary file and of course the song played.  So there must be something wrong with the files on the flash that the players don't like.  The files still show MP3 format on the flash.  I guess I'll just copy the entire MP3 folder to the flash and forget about editing the files.  The editing just makes it so much easier to watch for duplicates or to locate a particular song.  I'll hold off a bit in case you have any ideas on this mess.

Jim

[patio]

Pick 10 songs...

Format the flash drive.

Move those to the flash drive.

Then rename them and see if they play.