Previously, Brett Lymn wrote:
   > I know that you said it's not termination BUT - check the
   > termination ;-) 

I re-checked again last night; termination is still done correctly.  That
is not the nature of the problem.

   > The other thing to check is that the drive spin up on power up. 

Yeah, as mcr said, by the tame any OS gets to the chain, the drives are
spun up.  But, I am using "Motor Enable" on the drives; they don't spin up
until the NCR probes them.

--oliver, still curious.