At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth:
- Hold up intended cord.
- Look on both ends. Does one end have a standard USB end? Does the other end look like it might plug into the reader? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, continue to the next step. If the answer is no, try again with another cord.
- Pick up wall wart (little adapter with prongs that fit into the wall and a place where you can plug in a USB cable.
- Use magnifying glass to ensure that voltage rating on wall wart matches voltage rating of your house. If the answer to this question is yes, proceed to next step. If the answer is no, pick up another wall wart.
If you successfully make it this far in the list, you're ready to plug in your reader. The options are that it will work or it won't work. If it charges, all is good. If it doesn't charge, start working through the list again. So far mine has worked with my Palm Pre official cable, my Retraks cable, the cheap generic cable to charge my Pre at the office, and the microUSB adapter for my battery pack. My battery pack had no issues charging it either. In fact, every cable I've tried so far has worked as expected. Other than the fact that Sony recharging
used to be confusing, I'm not sure why it's so confusing now. It appears to follow all of the rules that USB devises follow.