Card Reader Upsets XD media!!!

Hi Guys.
I have a SWEEX 16 card reader attatched to my Windows XP Pro system.

It has performed without fault until today when I placed my
Olympus 256mb XD picture card
into the XD slot.

When the window opened it said card was not formatted and did I wish to format.
I cancelled this and promptly put the card back into my camera.
My camera asked the same question Do you want to format card.
When I grudgingly pressed yes it started to format then came up
CARD ERROR in big red letters!!!

Although the card had over 185 pictures on it (only half full)
when I transfered it to the reader it caused an error.

Can I sort this out or is the card beyond repair?
Why does this happen?
What did I do wrong if auything?

Help please.

Many thanks in advance

Xray

 

A shot in the dark..... bent pins (cf anyway)or dust in the reader??
"grudgingly pressed format"

Kinda says it all bye bye pictures sorry

 

Thanks but none of the above are true of the reader.

Any more ideas on how i repair my XD cards????

Thanks