Good that you succeeded, and the cable may have been the villain, in conformity with all that is known (feared?) about SCSI Voodoo. I have rarely known a SCSI problem to be fixed completely by a change of cable, but it has happened. Because I was able to do so, I acquired LaCie cables with each of my (5) LaCie d2 readers/burners, and they work. Apple-branded cables do so too, but the skinnier a (third-party) cable, the skinnier can be your chance of its universal suitability.
de
de