[pwalker8]

As many have noted in the past, Sony does not handle a large number of books on the memory card well. Right now, I've got some 1,100 ebooks on my memory card (all legally aquired btw (650 from Baen, 243 from sony, 78 from amazon and the rest PD from Gutenberg)). After several tries, I've finally come up with a methodology that works allows me to add books to the the memory card without having the reader go off into never-never land on me.

My first attempt was simply to load the books on the card via a card reader. That didn't work well. I could copy the books on to the card with no problem, but when I put the card into the sony reader, it simply went into an apparent infinate loop of process, reboot. I left it with the power cord plugged in over night and it was still chugging away the next morning, so I pulled the card and tried method 2.

Which was, first clear the card, then put the card into the reader. When the reader processed the card (it only took a few minutes), I plugged the reader into the computer and tried copying the books onto the card that way. Once again, no joy. I could copy the books onto the card, just fine, but once I unplugged the reader from the computer, the reader went off into never-never land. After several hours, I reset it and pulled the card.

Next, I cleared the card and tried to load the books via the Sony connect software (yea, I know, foolish idea, but you never know till you try). Naturally, the sony software locked up and died.

My last attempt worked. I use Calibre to put the books on the memory card. It did take about 20 minutes to copy the books from the library to the memory card, but once I disconnected the reader from the machine, it only took about 5 minutes for the reader to process the card and be ready for use.

If, like me, you like to load all your books on to a memory card, so it's always available to you, and you run into issues, using calibre to load the card may be something to try.