Although I have not read through the rest of the thread yet, I spotted the red flag I was looking for in your log - it's a Fujitsu 30G drive. This is not good news if the disk is playing up: I am willing ot bet it's the disk that's dead. It seems to be only the 30G, the other models in the same range don't seem to go bad. When I was doing support, I had a rash of these die one after the other, replaced under warranty.

I think you should still be able to get a replacement in the US under the warranty.