[maxk]

I've already frozen/bricked my reader a couple of times, and I notice that it regularly has file integrity problems (reported by libprs500 when reading the book database for example).

Does the Reader have a way of preventing file writes from caching to try and prevent errors when you unplug the USB cable? Is it an outdated USB concept that you should "stop" it from the USB manager?

Otherwise no one seems to be recommending that you "stop" the device before unplugging it and most times when I try to "stop" it, Windows complains that the device is being used and I can't find any tasks that are likely to be using it either. Could the driver provided by Sony be doing something in the background? I've tried killing almost every task running on my PC including anti virus.

Is there a surefire way of nicely disconnecting it that should avoid file damage?

Edit: Oh, and secondly, is it a valid backup method to copy the contents of the internal memory to a folder on your PC, then if there are errors in the book DB to copy files back from the PC? I'll try it anyway.