> I labeled my new disk as follows.  It would fsck and mount and
> service me until I rebooted.  After reboot I can do nothing without
> it complaining that it cannot read the last super block tha newfs
> created.

This sounds to me as though the end of the partition you're newfsing -
the a partition, in this case - overlaps something else and keeps
getting written over.  Maybe it overlaps the beginning of your swap
area, maybe it overlaps something else...check the partitioning on that
drive.

Also, you say the label is getting trashed, but it sounds more as
though the label is just fine, but the filesystem is being damaged.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu