Yeah, what Paul said. At first I discounted it because you said the player freezes, too. Now that I think about it, though, during a synch the player shouldn't be doing anything at all. So yeah, Paul's statement is right. The FAQ entry I linked is basically doing by-hand what the synch is trying to do.

You're the second person who thought the filesystem check was a freeze. Empeg guys, any chance of changing the "Checking File System" name to "Checking File System (may take a long time)"? Does that fit on the screen?