@Randys I'm curious ... What was the camera and firmware level? Which microdrive manufacturer, model, size? Were the microdrives formatted in the camera body or by using a PC? > write speed of the drive not matching the write speed > of my camera body That wouldn't be causing your problem with the drives. All computer I/O transfer operations "pace" each other. The design of the PCMCIA/IDE interface (that's the base for the CF interface design) includes ways to transfer data in/out; ways to test for I/O completion; ways to test for and recover from I/O errors. That having been said, it is possible for a specific implementation -- that could be either the microdrive or the firmware in the camera body -- to have code that does not properly implement the PCMCIA/IDE/CF design specifications. After those 2 failures, when you made inquires to both the camera and microdrive manufacturers, how did they respond? Did they do any testing? Suggest a firmware upgrade? Admit to an incompatibility issue? ... etc. At the very least, if the camera manufacturer claimed that the drive "just doesn't work" ... or " ... doesn't work with [our] camera", the drive manufacturer would have been very interested to find out the exact technical reasons. This class of error always has a reason ... and once we know that reason, somebody can fix it. MGD