Many thanks to the people who responded.  At 10.00 on a
Sunday night, I was amazed at how many people responded within
minutes!  Most people guessed correctly that the problem was due
to a mechanical failure of the rz28 hard drive.
        This was revealed by "uerf -o full -R | more"
        So, come Monday morning, I called my friendly neighborhood
digital repairman and he came today and replaced the hard drive 
(this took all of three minutes).  I am now restoring the files that
were on this disc from backup 
Thanks again
Martyn White
Received on Tue Apr 30 1996 - 18:15:47 NZST