I have a Tevion Elite 8198 4gb (with microsd slot) player. I get the same problem occasionally. To fix this problem; UNPLUG THE HEADPHONES, then plug in the charger lead, but plug this in to a battery powered USB power supply. Once you've done that, turn it on, wait about 10 seconds, then turn it off. Next, unplug the charger lead from the battery powered USB power supply, then plug it in to the supplied charger and plug that in to the wall/power outlet and wait for it to charge. I think the problem is that it doesn't always know when it's ran out of power - doing what I've said here seems to reset it somehow. Also, there is a mention of not plugging in the headphones when you plug the USB lead in to the PC (for file transfer). If you leave the headphones in then it gets confused and freezes with the hourglass symbol. In this case, unplug it from the PC but leave it switched on until it runs out of power, then recharge it. It's certainly a 'strange animal' but when it works it's a great piece of kit - I use it to back up 4 hours worth of disco music in the event that my laptop dies while i'm doing a disco. I can even plug a car cd-adaptor (cassette shaped device with a headphone jack) in to it and play the whole disco through the venue's cassette player!
Ian Penfold, January 2010