Some of the hard drive cables were not quite crimped properly. Pressing on them like you did is often a temporary fix. If you reboot it now, do you see those same I/O errors like you posted before? If not, then that's your most likely cause. (The fact that you didn't seem to get any such errors during the fsck after you reseated the cable would tend to point in that direction.) Email support (carsupport@xs4all.nl now, I think) and he should be able to get you a replacement. I don't know if it's free or how much it'll cost this late in the game. Surely not much.