Syncing music from external hard drive

Hi All,

I just purchased a new Dell with Windows Vista Home Basic. I have an
external, USB Iomega hard drive and a Sansa MPS player.

Is it possible to use Windows Media player to syn music directly from the
external hard drive onto the player? (I called Dell and they said it
wasn't). Whenever I try, it starts to sync, but then stops about five
minutes in.

Thank you,

Todd