Before you jump to the conclusion that the drives are bad, make sure you've ruled out all the other possible causes for disk trouble.

I'm not saying the drives aren't bad, I'm just saying that there are also some very common things which would make the drives to SEEM to be bad when in fact they're fine. So check the cheap and common things first.

I know you said "using either connector" on the IDE cable, which is one good step to help rule out a bad cable, but there is a whole list of other possible issues, and there's also the problem that most of these failures are intermittent, and you can't be super-certain that one plug-and-test pass is enough to rule out a certain set of possible problems.

Having said all of that...

Yes, I seem to recall others reporting problems with a certain batch of Fujitsu drives. Anyone have links to those threads?