[louisvd]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Complete fail on the Windows XP PC at work".

First, I bought a 16GB Class 10 SD Card for the unit. I have been able to format it and transfer files to it using my Notebook, which has an internal card reader. I run Fedora 14 on my Notebook. I also have a 2GB Class 4 SD Card, which I ALSO used to test with after having problems with the 16GB Card. Again, this works perfectly in the Notebook's card reader. Thus we can be sure that the SD Cards are OK.

Secondly, I had repeated failure in using my home PC (Fedora 13) and my Notebook (Fedora 14) to copy data successfully to the SD Card inserted into the Jetbook and connected by USB Cable. For this reason I tried my work PC. I thus had failures on three different PC's.

Thirdly, I used three different USB cables in my tests.

Fourthly, I had thus tested on Linux (Fedora 13 and Fedora 14) and Windows XP, so it cannot be an operating system issue.

You can see that I have eliminated all BUT the JetBook.

My tests on XP: (see the first post for details on Linux)
1. Connect the SD card to the PC and format with Linux's ext2 filesystem. I do this because it's not understood by XP, thus forcing the need to reformat it.
2. Insert the SD Card into the Jetbook. Power it on and wait for the main menu. Connect it via USB to the XP PC.
3. The Internal Memory shows as the E: drive. The SD Card is not yet formatted so has no drive letter.
4. Open Disk Manager. The SD Card is listed as a drive without a letter. Right click on it and choose FORMAT. Ensure FAT32 is the filesystem and choose Quick Format. (A fill format takes a LOOONG time and always fails eventually, both from the GUI and from the Command Prompt.)
-- on the 16GB Card this process failed. I formatted it as FAT32 on the Linux Notebook to continue testing with it. When inserted it showed as the F: drive.
-- on the 2GB Card the format succeeded. I suspect that's because there was less to write as it has a smaller FAT table. It showed as the F: drive.
5. Select a folder with e-books in it. Some PDF, some epub, some metadata.opf (generated by Calibre) and some cover.jpg files. Most of the files are less than 500 kB. the largest file is around 19MB, and the folder size is 211MB. Note: I am NOT using Calibre to transfer files, just a normal file system drag and drop / copy and paste. Copy the folder to the F: drive.
6. The copies failed. There were "Delayed Write Failure" yellow pop-up balloons, and the event log show MANY (almost 1 a second) disk events with ID 11 (hard disk controller error). The 2GB lasted longer than the 16GB, but both copies crashed long before the folder copy could complete.

Does your XP PC at work have an SD card reader/writer?

No

Was it that an SD card formatted in the XP PC and given some test files in
a test folder, did not show up in the jetbook's menu, when you iserted it into
your jetbook while it was on? Was there any error message when you
inserted the SD Card? If so, what did it say?

See the test above.
But once data is successfully written to the card by the Notebook, that data is readable by the Jetbook: both in it being able to display the files, and being able to copy it off the card - although this takes a long time because of the USB 1.1 interface.

If you are using the Jetbook as an SD card reader/writer for your work XP PC,
do both the Jetbook's internal memory and the SD card in the Jetbook, show
as new drive letters? This should be happening when you connect your
Jetbook to your PC using an USB cable.

Yes, both show up once the SD Card has been formatted.

XP should popup a window labled "Removable Disk (X: )" and offer to open a
folder in Windows Explorer. If you have an SD Card in the Jetbook then the
Drive letter in the "Removable Disk (X: )" will be the letter assigned to the SD
card and there will be the next lower letter assigned to the Jetbook's internal memory.

Correct

You should be able to format a workable FAT32 SD card for the Jetbook using
tools for just about any operating system. (After all, that is one of the
reasons that the relatively simple FAT formats are used for these flash
memory external devices.) The external drive interface in your "notebook" is
sure to be much faster and more stable than working through the old 1.1 USB
interface, to get to the SD card when it is in the Jetbook.

Whilst that fact is true, I cannot format the 16 GB SD Card that is inserted in the JetBook at the time. The 2 GB did format - once - but failed when I tried it again. Using Linux I can get the 16 GB card formatted.

Others who have lost the functioning of the Jetbook's SD card reader, have
gotten it back by "restoring" to factory settings using the Diagnostic Screen
functions built-into the Jetbook. **Caution** doing so can wipe out your
internal user memory, so it is a good idea to first copy the internal memory to
a folder on your PC hard drive, using the USB cable.

Although I had the problem out of the box with my brand new JetBook I will give this a try and report back.

Thank you to all for your responses thus far.

BTW: Still no reply from Ectaco yet.