I'm not sure what the nature of the "brief power surge" that you described was, but that's the sort of thing that could cause trouble if the drive were being accessed at the time of the spike.

Here at our university, we have a pretty dodgy power grid. I have a measuring device (mechanical) and I can see a brief spike on my monitor every time someone switches something on or off on the grid (not bad for my measurements, as the spikes are too fast for what concerns me). Sometimes, my speakers on the XP machine make audible noises (clicks) and sometimes, these spikes shoot my XP machine down (like this time). I have switched power supplies this morning and since then no more shoot-downs. The empeg and my DOS measuring box never had any problems ever, neither does anybody else in the department.
So maybe just some weird, stupid coincidence?