Couple of thoughts just come into my head.
Mainly that you said the Neo2 is a crappy board, so you went for the VIA instead?
Now, the Neo2 is rated by its owners as one of the most perfect motherboards available, if not THE most perfect. And you say its crappy... Do you have one?
Also your inability to get a HD to work right, is the Motherboards fault is it?
Its a known issue with Maxtor Drives and more so with the SATA 160 Drives which by the way, I have one, and it hates working with many other drives, including Seagate, Hitachi, and WD, on many of my motherboards, including DFI, Abit, and yes, my MSI Neo2 and Neo4... Are all those to blame> No, not when every other HD works just fine, and the Maxtor is the one that does not.
On its own, the Maxtor is fine... Its in a P4 3.6 system... Crappy PC with a crappy HD, make a fine pairing, but to call a motherboard crapy when you dont have a clue, is wrong.