No wonder you're having problems, Maxtor makes crappy harddrives. Western Digital have always worked really well for me. Seagate makes a pretty good harddrive too. I would say SCSI, but they'll cost you and you have to get a controller card. The good bit is that they're fast, reliable and you can daisy chain about a fuck ton and a half of them together onto one controller card.
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Alt Journals, Blogs for Perverts!
Fitness and nutrition writer, and UNIX/Linux Sys Ad in training
"Just as a man who has fallen into a heap of filth ought to seek the great pond of water covered with lotuses, which is near by: even so seek thou for the great deathless lake of Nirvana to wash off the defilement of wrong. If the lake is not sought, it is not the fault of the lake."