Which Maxtor drives? I've currently got 3 of the 250Gb ones and they're working fine (touch wood).

The first time this happened was with a Maxtor of 80gig (can't remember the model). Then I stayed away from Maxtor for quite a while, thinking that they might have had a bad patch. A few months ago I was in need of some extra HD space again, and I figured : "well, that the bad patch is probably over by now", so I decided to buy a 200gig diamondMax Plus 9 drive. As said before, it died on me within a month, taking all my stuff on it with it. I then replaced it with an identical model, which died on me too after a short while.
Now the brand "Maxtor" is absolutely forbidden to enter any of my PC's, and all my drives are replaced with WD's. I haven't had a problem since.

This topic seems to come up from time to time on the BBS, and about the only consensus that we ever seem to reach is that drive manufacturers go through good and bad patches.

Yes, I know. And keeping that in mind, that's what persuaded me to buy the 200gig drive in the first place. Well, that and the fact that it was a few euro's cheaper than a WD AND that it's using an FDB motor that is really quiet.
I guess it wasn't meant to be...