[simono]

Thanks for your helpful suggestions. Just thought I'd give you an update in case you are interested.

My friend took the player home (with some files ok and others mixed up) and tried it on his XP machine - it wasn't recognised, so he tried it on his Vista machine which reported that it needed formatting. He then formatted (FAT32) it with Vista and was the able to transfer files across with no problem - even when back on his XP machine.

I now have the player back and was able to transfer files OK last night when done singly - however when I tried copying 6 at a time it would copy 2 or 3 fine, then start copying the next one but fail part way through with the error message 'file not found' - at this point the drive is disconnected from the PC by windows. If I then look on the player, I can see the file that was 'not found' has been created on the player but has no or only some of the actual data in it. If I then reconnect the player to the PC, delete the file that failed from the MP3 and then copy that same file across as a single file it copies fine. I haven't (yet) had the problem I had before where a file fails in copying (as described here) but in failing manages to destroy all the files already on the player (with format being the only way out).

So in conclusion, it appears that formatting with Vista has improved the situation a lot and probably to the point where I could live with it (I really like the player once it has the data loaded). Should it corrupt all the files again I'll try the HP format utility lattesurf provided but don't really want to resort to that at this point.

My friend did say that there has been quite a lot of adverse comments about the reliability of USB ports with XP but I'm not sure if it is that simple. So the cause is not really clear and it would be good to know if iixorbiusii is using Windows XP with SP2 (and also when you bought the player). I'm just wondering if the recent batch of players ebuyer have had were formatted differently or whether there is something odd with my PC or .............. As with most problems like this it's probably a combination of several factors.

If I do cast any more light on it I'll post the info here.

Thanks again for your suggestions.