The Sony digital voice recorders can enter a failed state where it will not fully start. This can happen if files are renamed on the device rather than copied to your machine and renamed. In this situation, the startup screen will be shown, and the progress bar will be stuck at one tick short of completion.
To fix this problem, do the following:
1) Connect the recorder to a computer (Windows or Mac) as a USB device
2) Copy the following files to your computer:
- MUSIC.PST
- pmp_usb.ini
- ROOT.PST
- SonyRecorder_Driver.exe
- The VOICE folder
3) Re-format the recorder as an MS-DOS FAT formatted volume (with the "Format..." option in Windows, or with Disk Utility on a Mac)
4) Copy those files back onto the recorder
5) Unmount the recorder
After reboot, the recorder will lose date and time, so that will have to be re-configured. The recorder should be ready to use afterwards.
