Hello nivw,
We are still sweltering here, but maybe a break tonight. Hopefully you are keeping cool as well.
The Rio must be connected when you choose to send files to it because as you are creating your upload queue, MJ is talking to your Rio to get information about the available size so that we can keep you informed of this as you play with what files you want to send and at what bitrate.
In regards to the external format / crash, the test that I ran in this thread...
http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/interact/NeoBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=inter&Post=12356&BoardIdle=7&SortingBy=0&BoardOrder=Descend&Page=0&UserSession=..still works correctly. If you let me know what Operating System you have (if it is different from Windows 2000) I can try rerunning the test to see if I can duplicate the problem. If I can't duplicate it, could you try following the advice about removing the drivers from the other thread and let me know if that helps?
Regarding Lyrics etc, MJ will not strip the Lyrics and Art from your files unless you do an on the fly conversion. If you choose to convert the files this information will not be included and you will save more space.
During the force conversion, if a file is the same bitrate and type and you do not have Normalization checked, it should not get converted. For example if I have 5 mp3 files 4 of which are at 128kbps and 1 is at 192 kbps, if I have Normalization turned off and Force File Conversion checked and mp3 128 kbps checked, 4 files should be skipped and my one 192 kbps file should be converted. If you find this to not be the case, please let me know.
If the conversion time exceeds 2 minutes, the Plug-in should prompt you to turn your Rio on, before attempting the transfer.
Feel free to email me if you have additional followup questions or if you want me to retest the Format issue on a different OS.
Steve