No, it's the old MB. I'm seriously thinking about getting a new one (especially with this development), but haven't made the purchase yet.

According to Maxtor's website, the hard drive is jumpered correctly. There are apparently settings for Master, Slave, and Cable Select (no "Single Drive" setting), and it's on Master right now. I've tried it everywhere.

The MB has the letters "GA-5AX" right by an FCC statement; that's the only lettering that could be an identifying mark. The main chip (not the CPU I would assume this is the BIOS chip) is an ALi M1541 A1 (my dad looked it up last night; apparently ALi's out of business...)

Tried it a couple more times; no change...wound up replacing the heat sink (the bearing on the CPU fan was dying, and they came together), althuogh I don't think that would make a difference here...

Thanks! Any more thoughts greatly appreciated...