- i did some routing and it is infact seagate drives i have in my internal raid array, and one 360GB WD external disk which has been fine. So i think that the two (maybe even four!) 500GB drives im going to get will be seagate models (i prefer two small ones together than one massive one - then i can stripe them as a raid array as one drive if i want or use em seperately, spreading the load a bit makes more sense to *me* and yes i would never trust the shit that the drives report back if it was bundled with the drive itself man lol) - no doubt it was some muck one of your kids inadvertantly left on the drive which did it but that cant be helped man (1 teenage boy + internet access = porn sites with popups and f**k knows what else galore! 
)So Seagate it is then and thanks eidenk and jimi for the info/advice
I use these two apps/utilitys to take care of my drives and cleanup stuff and they have been very good indeed:
Acronis True Image Home OEM Edition v9.x > backups/rescue...failsafe
AusLogics BoostSpeed v4.1.1 (Build 105) > cleanup/defrag/registry stuff...etc
I have a mini live linux distro disc image that i can burn anytime which would do the job jimi (nice one for the tip)
So far so good. I appreciate it guys
Anyway business - http://www.ueberschall.com/en/ have released a free sample pack for their elastik player (both free to download, MAC and PC) which is worth a look and UVI workstation (very good stuff for free) has been updated and definately worth a gander
Dean
Edit: yeah its not old and also in the news section but the UVI workstation especially is very worthy as a sampler/instrument for £0.00 and the elastik player is good fun too, although i have not had enough time to play with it yet. Video tutorials are on the site also to make life easier
