Mtdblock3 Won't Mount!

I'm having problems getting to my home partition--
1. at boot, I need to Ctrl-C, or it will never finish
2. after this, /home is unmounted
3. I don't notice any problems in dmesg
4. mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock3 /home <-- hangs and uses 100% CPU as a zombie (unkillable) process

Any ideas?

OZ freezing

My OZ 3.5.1 freezes quite often for some reason. Anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it? If I'm lucky enough to have focus in a terminal, I can usually use it to chvt 1 and restart Opie. Then it will continue to work until it freezes again. This suggests it is an issue with either Opie, QPE, or the touchscreen drivers.
I can reproduce the freezing quite predictably by:
1. enable wireless
2. have wireless applet updating the signal line every 0sec
3. wait for wireless applet to die
4. use ?? applet to eject wireless card
5. Z is frozen: no input works, suspend button is ignored, and turning the switch on the bottom to remove battery is also ignored (Z is on until battery is removed)

Konqueror Cookies

OZ 3.5.1 (Opie) is working nice so far. Installed Konqueror, but I can't login to my SquirrelMail for some reason. I am guessing this is a cookie issue (I get a "you're not logged in" immidiately after logging in). Anyone else experience this or know how to fix it?
Thanks.

Linux 2.6

Is anyone using Linux 2.6 on their Z? How does it compare to the 2.4 kernels included in most (all?) ROMs?
What configuration works?

I/O errors

I recently began looking into finally installing OpenZaurus/Opie on my C760... First, however, I want to back it up...
dd-ing to my PC via netcat shows a ton of:
. . . dd: /dev/mtd3: Input/output error
In the kernel log, there's lots of:
. . . sharp_sl_nand_read_ecc: Failed ECC read, page 0x0002ffe0
Via the service menu, there's a flash tester... it suggests 1 byte is bad.

The errors begin around when there is 37 MB saved on my PC and continue until about ... well, it doesn't stop... =p

Is this semi-normal (like bad pixels) and likely to have been there when I got it? Will the Z workaround the bad area and continue to function with just a bit less flash space?
Will installing another ROM (C860 or OZ) be risking making my Z unusable as a result?
On a side topic, am I even backing up the proper device (mtd0-3) or should I be looking elsewhere to get an entire backup?

Thanks