> Are you sure it's not overheating?  The fact that it fails

If it were dying after some time running, then I'd agree.
As it is, I don't think heat has time to get into the act.

BTW I have a sun386, which reliably cooks disks inside 12months, so
I'm familiar with overheating :-)

In this case, I suspect earthing or lack thereof or a dodgy cable are
at fault.  

The 2 disks that keep dissappearing are IBM 1G OEM jobs that just do
not fit any of my mounting hardware so simply sit on the floor of the
disk box (insulated by 2 sheets of paper :-) sounds bad, but its been
working for more than 12 months...

--sjg