I just got one of these and this is what I did. Set up playlists the way you want them in Windows Media Player. Open windows media player and plug your MP3 player with the usb connector that came with the player. When WMP recognizes the player click on 'SYNC' on the WMP toolbar. It will load your playlists onto the MP3 player.

your pigtail thing most likely plugs into the usb port on your computer. You will need to download the files to your pc then move them from the pc to your sandisk. There are some places that you can legally download music for free and there are places you can buy it. You can find some free books online also. A few of the places I use for music are
garageband.com
Garage band is a site where new artist can put their music for people to hear them and many have been discovered that way some of the songs are available for free download but not all.

skreemr mp3 search engine
Skreemr is a music search engine that in some cases does offer free music, you can try right clicking on the music link and select save link as and save it to your pc.

this site has a lot of good info you might find helpful.
free audio

be very very careful what sites you choose to download from because the peer to peer share sites are famous for spreading all kinds of bad infections. If you download music or files from anywhere always before you open them on your pc right click on them and scan them with your antivirus and antispyware programs to make sure they are clean.

bob- you gotta be kidding, right?! I have no idea what Media even is- I hope it is simple. very, very simple.

raven- I was worried about the virus- just like the e-cards. Now I know how to scan them first. thanks.

Miss my Walkman...

Well, that didn't last long- when I right click on a music site, I right clicked, and there isn't anything there to scan with- just:

add
properties
print
shortcut
etc
etc

How do I get a antispyware and virus scan here? Thanks

go to a file on your pc like a picture file you have stored in your pictures for example now right click directly on the file and one of the options in the box should be scan some will say the actual name some will then have a drop down that list what it can scan with, all antivirus programs that I know of add the scan option to the context menu, some antispyware programs do also but not all. You can also open your AV or AS program and go to where you select what to scan and rather than have it scan the whole c drive use the browse feature to go to that specific file or better yet folder and tell it to scan just that it will be real quick and give you the results.

you have to have the file actually already downloaded to your pc before you can scan the file. You scan it before you ever double clik on it to open it.

Now if you have firefox you can add an add-on called dr.web that will let you scan it right on the website or scan the entire website even, very good add -on.
Dr.Web anti-virus link checker

there is an option for dr.web for those with out firefox also.
Free Dr.Web LinkCheckers for your browsers

this one will let you enter any url address into the dr.web blank and then dr.web will scan that website to check to see if it is safe.
URL Check

the one below is an online version that will let you browse to the file on your pc and scan it with dr.web

Here is a link that might be useful: online dr.web

OK- I saw the Dr. Web, but didn't know if it was safe- I thought one of my AVG/Anti-spyware would show up.

On the sites- I see albums to download- but I only want single songs.....

Keep getting 'unable to find xx, project aborted', whenever I click on a song..

which site in particular are you trying to download from?

and once you have the song downloaded on to your pc then yes when you right click on the file your AV will show up in the list for scan.

I don't know how old you are or how far back you want music from. Here is a link the Free Old Time Radio Shows, there are hundreds of old radio shows here, all seemingly out of copyright.

My jetAudio program allows me the choice of listening online or downloading the programs of my choice. Not sure if Windows Media Player acts that way.

I can't help with downloading music because I have never done so. My music all came from cd's, most of which I recorded from LP's. Once the music is on your computer you can put it on your player as I suggested in my previous post. I was pleasantly surprised when I found it so easy to do because I had read some reviews on how it was a problem with the sandisk players. If you get your music and still have questions I will be happy to outline step by step how it worked for me.

I have a SanDisk too. Is there a way to download music from music videos on UTube? Thanks.

Sanantoniorose- off topic- where are you? I'm at 78230!

bob414, I have LP's I like to record onto CD's. What did you use to record your LP's to CD's?

I used Roxio. I didn't want to pay their price for it but found it to be easy to use it did a great job.
It would be a little harder, but the free program Audacity could be used to record music from any source that is played through your computer. After recording it with Audacity and exporting it as a .wav or MP3 file you could burn it to CD using Windows Media Player or other CD burning software.
sanantoniorose, you could use audacity to record music from Utube as you play it, but I don't recommend doing so with copyrighted music.

you can research streaming rippers/stream ripper which allow you to stream music from music sites, radio stations, broadcasts or youtube(some) etc and rip the stream to save to your pc.
some examples
StreamRipper32
Streamripper