I agree with Stu's post about checking the EIDE header on the empeg. I've fixed several with cold solder joints after going through the same frustration you're seeing. Drive goes bad, replace drive, only to find out it's a bad cable or cold solder joints on the header that started the problems in the first place. If you have have solder skills, this is a quick job.

Another thing that has caused problems is using a USB to serial adapter. The driver tends to put the thing at COM 21 or something crazy, manually changing it to a lower COM port helps.