I just purchased a Seagate external 160gb. I bought the Seagate based on their 5 year guarantee. I used Seagates many years ago, without problems. I drifted over to WD's then Maxtors. I noticed in my stack of old drives that there were an awful lot of dead WD's. I have had better luck with...
I have an MSI Board (MS-6712) with a 2600+. I had similar problems. What I determined is this: Leave the Multiplier and everything else in Auto. Change the FSB setting until it becomes unstable on boot up, then back it down. Every time I changed the multiplier I couldn't boot and had to reset...