Hi All Motherboard: ASUS P5VD2-MX SE (BIOS 0602) DVD: TSSTCorp SH-S128D Hard drive: 320GB SATA1 Maxtor STM33320820AS Pentium(R) D CPU 3.20GHz, Cores: 2 Linux 2.6.22.13-0.3-default x86_64 System: openSUSE 10.3 (x86_64) KDE: 3.5.7 "release 72.2" Model: GeForce 7300 GS I've recently upgraded to 10.3 with a full/new install from a previously fully functional 10.2 (no hardware changed during the upgrade). I'm now getting a significant run of "ata3.00:exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen" error messages. The effect is such that, for example, if I don't start VirtualBox immediately, after booting the system, it just hangs ... The relevant part of dmesg are (with multiple occurrences of): " ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:20/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x1a data 255 in res 40/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout) ata3: soft resetting link ata3.00: configured for PIO0 ata3: EH complete " plus, the occasional: " sr0: CDROM (ioctl) error, command: Test Unit Ready 00 00 00 00 00 00 sr: Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] [descriptor] sr: Add. Sense: No additional sense information " The configuration for the drive starts with "UDMA/33" and slowly deteriorates to "PIO0". Following one prompt, in dmesg, I tried editing /etc/smartd.conf to uncomment "/dev/sda -a -d sat". But no luck ... the "frozen" message continues ... I've done a major Google around this topic and can find no obvious consistency with the potential cause or solution; it appears independent of hardware/software/Linux version/drivers/... I initially though the problem was with EXT3 journalling (as the impact appears to increases over time - but I cannot fathom how to force a check of EXT3 at boot). If I try to run "Repair Installed System", from the original installation DVD, it just reboots ... I'm lost for a solution ... Further information: "/sbin/lspci | grep IDE" gives: " 00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A SATA 2-Port Controller (rev 80) 00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 07) " Has anybody solved this for OpenSUSE Linux 2.6.22, or can help me investigate it further ... Cheers B -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org