Currently Seeking Maxtor Support.

1st thing I discovered is that Maxtor has been acquired by Seagate.
Their Website is really SLOW, too!  Not easy to find support, either.
No clear online-chat-help, or phone numbers to call.  In fact, the
experience looking for help or solutions was so frustrating, I am now
going to look on SARC

I did get linked over to Microsoft's Knowledgebase (from the Seagate
site) and this was the closest solution:

Problems Installing Windows 2000 on HP NetServer LH3 with NetRAID
View products that this article applies to.
Article ID : 216645
Last Review : October 30, 2006
Revision : 3.1
This article was previously published under Q216645
SYMPTOMS
When you install Windows 2000 on a Hewlett-Packard (HP) NetServer LH3
with a system partition larger than one gigabyte (GB) in size, you
receive the following error message when the computer restarts:
DISK READ ERROR CTRL+ALT+DEL TO REBOOT
Back to the top

CAUSE
Windows 2000 does not include a driver for the HP NetRAID adapter.
When you attempt to use the HP driver for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0,
the same problem can occur.
Back to the top

RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, create a partition that is smaller than 1
GB in size during the Text-mode portion of Setup. This allows the
installation process to continue. 1. Upgrade the system BIOS to
4.06.43 PL or higher.
2. Upgrade the NetRAID firmware to D.03.02 or higher.
3. Restart your computer to continue Setup.

It doesn't seem logical to me that it is any kind of BIOS problem,
with either the Motherboard BIOS - but possibly the Maxtor 'firmware'
- but that doesn't make sense, either, because the drive can be
reformatted and reinstalled and works fine at that point.  I'm
beginning to think this is some kind of virus.

Here's some info I've found and will pursue:
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see if knoppix will boot into it.

http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

writing on a windows nt file system is still experimental), it's worth
a shot though, try mounting it with the latest ntfs driver.

BTW- If your HDD ide connector came unplugged from the PCB due to a
jolt or if there is something bad preventing the info from being bus'd
you will have to repair that.

BUT knoppix will let you boot in from the CD drive and at least mount -
t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/dir your HDD to see if there really is an IO
error, or if it's windows that's messed up.

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Symptom: "NTLDR is missing" ; "A disk read error occurred" ; System
hangs after BIOS POST finishes
Probable Cause:  Boot sector is corrupt due to hard disk errors or
virus infection
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Problem/Symptom                           Tool(s) to Use

Corrupt master boot record               Recovery Console (fixmbr)

Corrupt boot sector                          Recovery Console
(fixboot)

Corrupt or missing boot.ini                Recovery Console (bootcfg /
rebuild) * New / Not yet tried *

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Disinfecting boot sector viruses. Boot sector repair is best
accomplished by the use of antivirus software. Because some boot
sector viruses encrypt the MBR, improper removal can result in a drive
that is inaccessible. However, if you are certain the virus has only
affected the boot sector and is not an encrypting virus, the DOS SYS
command can be used to restore the first sector. Additionally, the DOS
LABEL command can be used to restore a damaged volume label and FDISK /
MBR will replace the MBR. None of these methods is recommended,
however. Antivirus software remains the best tool for cleanly and
accuarately removing boot sector viruses with minimal threat to data
and files.

Creating a system disk. When disinfecting a boot sector virus, the
system should always be booted from a known clean system disk. On a
DOS-based PC, a bootable system disk can be created on a clean system
running the exact same version of DOS as the infected PC. From a DOS
prompt, type:

SYS C:\ A:\
and press enter. This will copy the system files from the local hard
drive (C:\) to the floppy drive (A:\).

If the disk has not been formatted, the use of FORMAT /S will format
the disk and transfer the necessary system files. On Windows 3.1x
systems, the disk should be created as described above for DOS-based
PC's. On Windows 95/98/NT systems, click Start | Settings | Control
Panel | Add/Remove Programs and choose the Startup Disk tab. Then
click on "Create Disk". Windows 2000 users should insert the Windows
2000 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, click Start | Run and type the name
of the drive followed by bootdisk\makeboot a: and then click OK. For
example:

d:\bootdisk\makeboot a:
Follow the screen prompts to finish creating the bootable system disk.
In all cases, after the creation of the bootable system disk, the disk
should be write protected to avoid infection.

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Read this too: http://forum.paragon.ag/customer/viewtopic.php?
t=1299&highlight=mbr

13 Hard Disk Management
13.1 Update MBR
The program allows the user to overwrite the current bootable code in
the MBR (Master Boot Record) by the standard bootstrap code. This
feature can repair corrupted bootable code on a hard disk as a result
of boot virus attacks or malfunction in the boot managing software.

In order to start the operation the user should take the following
steps:

1. Select a hard disk on the Disk Map.
2. There are several ways to run the operation:
-Select in the Main menu: Hard Disk > Update MBR.
-Call the popup menu for the selected hard disk (right click of the
mouse button) then select the menu item: Update MBR.

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If you have a professional edition of Paragon's Partion Manager, there
is a Boot Corrector utility that allows you assign drive letter to
system partition, change BOOT.INI file etc. If you don't have this
utility ask for this from support team guys, they do provide it in
case of problems. Use the Boot Corrector to correct the drive letter
of your boot partition.

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...if problem persists, MB is corrupt

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*Note:  This is a work-in-progress.  I'm kinda blogging my experience
with this problem and my path toward a solution, in hope that it may
be referenced and helpful to others who might encounter a similar
problem.

And even more... does this sound like a motherboard issue to anyone?
Now it will only stay on for about 2 minutes before it just powers down.
Maybe power issue?  The BIOS correctly reports the drives and their
sizes, but Windows installer still thinks they're drastically off from
reality.