Bert , does your code resemble something like this.
I dug this out of a a project I did in 1997 , and it worked okay.


#define HIGH_U8(U16) ((U8)(U16>>8))
void write_ext_eeprom(U16 address, U8 data) {

i2c_start();
i2c_write(0xa0);
i2c_write(HIGH_U8(address));
i2c_write(address);
i2c_write(data);
i2c_stop();
delay_ms(11);
}


U8 read_ext_eeprom(U16 address) {
U8 data;

i2c_start();
i2c_write(0xa0);
i2c_write(HIGH_U8(address));
i2c_write(address);
i2c_start();
i2c_write(0xa1);
data=i2c_read();
i2c_stop();
return(data);
}