Sansa Clip Zip read errors

[dreamlayers]

I have been using my Clip Zip very little, and mainly just playing one guided meditation.  Today I encountered a read error in that file. Rewriting the file via dd conv=notrunc made it readable. Trying to copy all of the 3.6 GB on there to my hard drive to check readability failed about halfway through, with a file I certainly didn't play often. I'm surprised to see such unreliability with flash storage.  Have others encountered similar problems?

Also, after one of these read errors, the device becomes unusable, generally leading to a panic and shutdown after which I need to long press the power button to reset, and then short press it after hearing a click in the headphones to turn the device back on.

[Bilgus]

Bad flash is common on the sansa players
see: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,51844.0.html
even if you don't run RB from the sdcard with the special build at least it'll be able to boot from sd once your flash gets worse

[dreamlayers]

Thanks, I installed that bootloader. Do you know if the bootloader is on the same low quality flash used for the file system? In other words, can the bootloader become corrupted as easily as an MP3 file?

Even if that is the case, this does decrease the chance of total failure. Thanks.

[saratoga]

The entire player is one nand device with a simple hardware SD controller. Rockbox hides the firmware to keep the user from accidentally formatting it, but it's the first few MBs of all the AMS devices storage.