MySQL as Linked Server on SQL Server 2008 - Data Length Mismatch

I am trying to set up a third party MySQL as a Linked Server on SQL Server 2008. When I try to access the data via a simple OpenQuery below I get an error.

SELECT * FROM OpenQuery(SERVERNAME, 'SELECT * FROM table')

The error message:

OLE DB provider 'MSDASQL' for linked server 'SERVERNAME' returned data that does not match expected data length for column '[MSDASQL].tablename'. The (maximum) expected data length is X, while the returned data length is Y.

NOTE:(where X > Y)

I've tried with another MySQL table that I built myself and it works fine. Therefore I assume the problem might be with the MySQL source.

EDIT: After digging a little deeper into the MySQL data I found several "invalid" dates such as zero dates. These could be a reason, however I have no way to change the data source so I must find a way to convince SQL to ignore it.

I recall something form previous versions of SQL where you could switch to "Lazy Schema Validation" to force SQL not to check this. However this op开发者_运维知识库tion appears to be gone in 2008.

Any ideas how I could make this work?