EDIT: I just loaded up a brand new 4GB card Patriot)... getting the same error message.

EDIT 2: well... that's... strange. I turned the N800 off, removed the battery, went to weep quietly in a corner (caused more by watching the Seattle Mariners lose miserably *again*), came back, put the battery back in, turned it on, loaded the card, no problems.

This silly N800 thing sure is touchy some times... .

So, you put in a brand new 4gb card (with the tablet off) and turn it on and format is greyed out already, for that card? Weird.

Now, pls go and weep in the same corner, see whether that would reproduce the problem/error message . Bottomline, is the problem solved?

If not, you may want to try Fanoush's trick, keep the card in, but leave the door open, and, assume it is an ext card, 0 is internal, the one you have to open the battery cover; 1 is external, the one behind the kick stand. I would always remove the uninvolved card before I issue the format commands, just in case I type something wrong and erase the other card.
xterm
sudo gainroot
umount /media/mmc1 #this may not be necessary
mkdosfs /dev/mmcblk1p1 #******This will erase your card*******

If the problem is solved already, then we have nothing to pursue until the Mariners lost, again .

BTW, did you engage a swap file?
And on another thread, "files lock....", did close app manager solve the problem?



bun

Yeah. After removing the battery for five minutes and replacing it, suddenly, *b*o*o*m*, the cards were being read perfectly fine.

Not quite sure what the battery had to do with the cards giving off those errors, though, but it's pretty damned obvious that I don't know a lot about a lot when it comes to my N800

Ah. This is good to know. I'll make a note of this somewhere.

Oh, that will be today, then. They're the worse team in the Majors this year (the year that was suppose to be the one where they make pennant race at least?).

Um... 'swap file'? Um. No?

I haven't tried it yet. From other responses I got in another thread, it seems people have the same version of mplayer that I do but get better streaming video. I figure this problem of mine is just God's way of sparing me the pain of watching the Mariners lose (again) on the n800 by scrambling even the game highlights feed.

I will try it a bit later in the week, though. I figure by then I'll be so depressed that nothing will phase me, including screwing up a reinstall

Just remember the error mess "...file locked, cannot open...." is when you try to do apt-get install... with app manager open, or dpkg with app manager open. I, the mere-mortal vs the immortal of linux guru, have seen that statement a millions times .
Edit: Or, are you root?

bun