:) Thanks for all the good advice!

I will send the drive back since its only 6 months old...IBM 60 GXP Deathstar strikes again!!!

Trouble is that I have reinstalled XP on my previous slave drive...IBM 30 GXP and its started to suffer random reqular lockups already??

So I am just hoping that its not on the way out as well... cause its only 12 months old.

I will keep you posted. If anyone else has any more suggestions about what might be worth trying to sort out these lockups please let me know because they are driving me crazy :huh:

This is not bad sectors causing this.

I have disabled block transfer mode like DoG suggested and so far have not suffered any freeze ups...which is great because I would have expected one by now!

So I am keeping all my fingers crossed it stays this way.

What exactly happens when you disable block transfer mode ??