I think e2cp is corrupting things for me too... Here's what I did:

C:\temp\e2tools_win>e2ls hda5

bin        dev        drive0     drive1     empeg      etc        lib

lost+found mnt        proc       readme     sbin       swapfile   tmp

usr        var



C:\temp\e2tools_win>e2cp README.txt hda5:/



C:\temp\e2tools_win>e2tail hda5:/README.txt

Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read

Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read: hda5

.

The hda5 file seemed fine until I ran an e2cp on it, then I get the "short read" error and e2tail, e2ls, etc. all fail. Seems like the file got corrupted somehow by e2cp.