Re- xD picture card - write protected?

This has happened to me too. My camera (Olympus C-450Z / D-565) won't
write to my 512MB xD card (very expensive!). The LEDs by the
viewfinder just blink at me. My PC reads the card (in a card reader,
not the camera), but it won't write anything to the card or format it
- just pops up 'disk is write protected'. I've tracked it down to the
DCIM folder (created by the camera to store pics in) - if I try to
copy this folder (which is empty, btw) to the PC, I get another error:
"The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable." Scandisk reports
no problems with the card.

Has anyone else had any similar problems? Did you manage to resolve
them? Maybe I should contact Olympus...

ben

"Not Me" wrote...
Hi,

Hope this group is appropriate for my problem. I have 2 xD cards (16/64MB)
and a card reader. The 16MB one works fine in the reader and I can do
pretty much whatever I'd like to. However the 64MB one tells me the card is
write protected if I try to add or delete anything.
I can format the card fine from my camera (fuji a204).

So is there any way to get rid of this write protect error?
Cheers,
Chris

ps. just in case some xD cards are different - mine don't have write
protect/enable switches on the card!