Been a while - but I finally broke down and bought a used CF card reader off eBay for $150. Installed it last night and NOTHING CHANGED. Still cant save anything as it says "Operation failed, press enter". I've tried different cards, including the new 128MB ScanDisk one I purchased which is on the supported list. Once in a while when I boot, it will say "project data has changed, do you want to load from CF card or ..." But if I do choose to load from CF card, it says "Operation failed, press enter". So.................. This is very frustrating. Surely someone out there has figured this out. At this point, I don't know if:
1. The "new" CF card reader is also bad
2. There is some other upstream component that is bad
3. There is a bad ribbon cable (I re-seated both ends.)
4. Could this be related to a dying CMOS battery? I'm sure it's due, but I fear replacing it now will erase all my current settings (which I DONT WANT.)
I would really appreciate it if someone who finally figured out this obviously common problem - would share the solution.