New Seagate HDD = corrupted files and directories. Why?

[hotfusion]

To elaborate on the title:
A couple of days ago I bought an 80Gb Seagate ST380011A and have had problems:
System: Pentium III 933Mhz slot 1 on a QDI Advance 5/133E mainboard. O/S = 98SE.
Symtoms: Either when transferring an existing image, going for a clean install or simply using as data storage, the files or directories become corrupted or are missing altogether, rendering the install useless with blue screens and multiple illegal ops. I FDISK'd, formatted and reinstalled 9 times in total over the weekend and have now run out of ideas.
Initially the BIOS didn't recognise this drive although there is a jumper on the rear to limit capacity to 32Gb which I used at first, although I had the file problems then also.
I flashed the BIOS which could then see full drive. Same problems.
Ran 'Seatools' diagnostics with OK result, technical support offered no helpful advice.
I have 5 other drives ranging from 2.4 to 30Gb, all work fine. Why not this drive?
I am totally at a loss. Any ideas why this is happening, anyone?
Cheers, Andy.

 

[SYAR2003]

Could it be that the drive gets hot ,as a test unscrew it
and let it lie loose in front of the intake fan for testing purposes.

 

[hotfusion]

Thanks for the idea, but I can discount overheating as a problem - the drive is suspended in a cradle in a good airflow in front of the case fan and runs cool.
Idea: Possibly the BIOS isn't autodetecting the heads, cylinders etc correctly? I'll compare what my BIOS reports versus what they should be, although I would have thought an error like that would make the drive totally unusable, whereas at the moment I can install Windows, it simply corrups soon after. :-(