i thought i hosed my 1GB mem stick yesterday. the PSP had trouble reading the card (although it still worked) and i could get access to it via USB connection. i reformated the card via the PSP menu and everything is OK now. thank god i had recent savegame backups but sadly, i lost my emulator saves.
i think corruption happens when the memory stick gets removed/inserted at the wrong time. now, i'm waiting a bit longer until i put my mem stick (MS2) back in. i'll continue to test different scenarios attempting to find which time is the best.