Nope - definitely not cable related. The cable's tucked right down near the board, so the case lid can't touch it. The player's laid flat on a solid desktop. It reboots cleanly every time with the lid off, and no adverse boot messages.

If you gently lower the lid onto to top of the case then power cycle, it hangs, the boot message shows an error and the player displays no hard disk found. It's like the lid's somehow radiating something nasty into the drive. I'm just praying now that the same doesn't happen when the new drive I've got on order turns up.

Dominic