Bulk Load Data Conversion Error. And More...

Hello,
I am working on an application that will import data from ascii tab-delimited files into corresponding tables in a sql server 2005 express db.
The problem I am facing is that i get errors when running bulk insert.
The tables all have one extra column which is a primary key identity value.
Additionaly, the column data types include:
int, bigint, nchar, nvarchar, datetime and bit
an example table looks like this:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[counties](
[id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[InternalID] [int] NULL,
[Active] [bit] NULL,
[Code] [nchar](10) COLLATE Greek_CI_AS NULL,
[Description] [nvarchar](50) COLLATE Greek_CI_AS NULL,
[StartDate] [datetime] NULL
)


An example data file looks like this:

InternalIDActiveCodeDescriptionDate
1 101Αι�„�‰Î»Î¿Î±ÎºÎ±��ν16/11/1909
2 102Α��γολίδο�‚29/04/1949
3 103Α��καδία�‚16/11/1909
4 104Ά���„η�‚ 16/11/1909
5 105Α�„�„ική�‚ 26/07/1943

So, what I do is:
1. for each table I generate a character format file with the following command:
bcp mydb..table format nul -f tableformat.fmt -c -T -S hostsqlexpress
2. I modify the format file to exclude the first identity column by zeroing the field length, the column order and terminator. The resulting format file looks like this:

9.0
6
1 SQLCHAR 0 0 "" 0 id ""
2 SQLCHAR 0 12 " " 2 InternalID ""
3 SQLCHAR 0 3 " " 3 Active ""
4 SQLCHAR 0 20 " " 4 Code Greek_CI_AS
5 SQLCHAR 0 100 " " 5 Description Greek_CI_AS
6 SQLCHAR 0 24 " " 6 StartDate ""

3. I run BULK INSERT
BULK INSERT tablename
FROM dataFile
WITH (
FIRSTROW=2,
FORMATFILE = formatFile,
DATAFILETYPE = 'char',
FIELDTERMINATOR=' ',
ROWTERMINATOR='
',
KEEPNULLS
)

As a result of the above configuration I get this:


Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 2, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 3, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 4, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 5, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 6, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 7, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 8, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 9, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 10, column 6 (EndDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 11, column 5 (StartDate).
Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 12, column 6 (EndDate).
Msg 4865, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot bulk load because the maximum number of errors (10) was exceeded.
Msg 7399, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The OLE DB provider "BULK" for linked server "(null)" reported an error. The provider did not give any information about the error.
Msg 7330, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
Cannot fetch a row from OLE DB provider "BULK" for linked server "(null)".

What am I doing wrong here? With previous configurations I got errors about the BIT fields. In general, I only receive errors... The only thing that worked was with a table that only had nvarchar. Is there a fundamental mistake in what i do? I have read many posts, but nothing specific about handling different data types with bcp and bulk insert.
I would appreciate any help, as I am running out of time
Thank you.

Dimitris Chrysomallis