they are samsung spinpoints, i looked them up on the comaptiblity list.
i can get Raid 1 set up and everything runs fine, it even checks the disks by default on a new set up.
as soon as i power cycle the unit the disks become alien.
I have never been that happy with this Linkstation really, it apealed to me before because it was RAID 1 (although i can get that working now), I could set it to power up and down at given times (which has never worked), It runs at Gigabit speed (which has never happened from this device on my gigabit network even with jumbo frames sizes set, it was good value for money (but you only get what you pay for).
sorry i'm ranting again.
I think the answer maybe to put the two 500GB drives back in and sell it and go back to QNAP as i never had any issue with my old QNAP NAS (apart from it was a single drive only and i couldnt afford the RAID 1 version)
I appreciate all the help you have given me davo, would you like to but a nice linkstation duo ?
All the best