Thank you to all that responded to my query. As some suggested, I checked
with Maxtor support. Indeed they make returning a bad drive easy, BUT - you
need a diagnostic code from their PowerMax diagnostic software. That was the
catch. The SMART error came up ONLY during the boot process, but never
through any diagnostic tests. The PowerMax did report that the S.M.A.R.T.
flag was set, but did not find any real errors and certified the drive to be
good. At the suggestion of the Maxtor tech support, I replaced the IDE
ribbon cable. Problem went away!

The cable that I removed appears to be good, and worked fine with several
drives. Apparently, there can be a subtle defect or variation in the cable
that will trigger an S.M.A.R.T. error. Though this might help others.

Peter
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