Thanks for replying. yes, I have turned the power switch on, waited a few seconds and then held down the play button for at least 60 seconds. Visual land says (now that I have found the troubleshooting page) that when you connect it to the usb port to charge, it must be in "on" position and the screen will show that it is charging and then zzzzzz will show up and then it may go black...mine stays black , it never comes on..and does'nt charge at all. The computer does'nt even recognise that it is there and I have double checked the ports as well as tried using another cable. It worked fine at first, I never really got to use it other than to load some music from media player. It sounded great when I checked the songs.
Unfortunately a return must be made within 14 days. That really stinks since that time has passed. I will definitely not buy another VL product. :(