Micro SD read/write problems

Hi all,
my wife and I each have some micro sd cards. Mine is a 8 gb, and she's got a 4. I'm not really sure of the brands. Since we've had them both, I've had alot of trouble reading and writing to them. We have a micro sd usb adaptor, which has never seemed to work right. It would usually lock up my system everytime I used it. So instead we tried a SD card adapter, which we then plugged into a photo frame since we dont actually own a media card reader. That would also usually lock up the system if I tried to use windows explorer. Using RToolDS I was able to load and read the cards fine 80% of the time. The other times would lock up, and usually corrupt the micro card data. I always figured the problem was my computer's USB ports. I now have a new PC, and have the opposite problem. I can now use Windows explorer, but not RToolDS. But even though Explore now sometimes works, the stuff I load onto the card never runs. Now I've tried formatting both cards several times, using both Windows and Sony's formatting program (I forget the name, it was on the old PC). So that leaves me with either 2 bad micro cards, or 2 bad card readers.

What brand card readers have you guys had luck with, and which micro SD cards? I think if I'm getting a new card reader, I'd like an internal one with SATA interface if they even make them (I dunno, never looked into them before). If not, then a USB one would be fine. As far as the cards, I saw this Sandisk...
http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/mercha...DHC16GB-Sandisk
which I thought was supposed to be a pretty good brand, but I dunno. Any thoughts?

 

Actually, it was the Panasonic formatter I was using. I ordered a new card reader, and am waiting on it to get here. I couldnt find the one you recomended, it looked like the stores were not carrying it anymore. Why is it that all the card readers with a micro sd slot are ugly as hell? I searched for a nice one for a couple days. I found a couple that didnt look bad, but they usually included fan controllers and LCDs, which I'd like but cant really afford. Plus most of the one out have bad reviews. I finally just got a cheap one because it was the only one I found that didnt seem to have problems with Windows 7, and it had the Micro SD reader.