Comment 7 for bug 352197

Same problem:

Xubuntu 9.04, Asus A6Rp laptop, CoreDuoT2060, Hitachi HTS541080G9AT00

uname:
2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Hitachi > is a PATA drive< , lspci -vv reports:
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 IDE Controller (rev 80) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
 Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 1397
 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 64
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
 Region 0: I/O ports at 01f0 [size=8]
 Region 1: I/O ports at 03f4 [size=1]
 Region 2: I/O ports at 0170 [size=8]
 Region 3: I/O ports at 0374 [size=1]
 Region 4: I/O ports at ff00 [size=16]
 Capabilities: [70] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
  Address: 00000000 Data: 0000
 Kernel driver in use: pata_atiixp

Yet s(da) naming scheme is used.

Im unable to switch ahci mode off in BIOS(option does not exist).

Symptoms are 100% matching those matching what Gorgonzola wrote on 2009-04-06.
System freezes randomly on boot or on poweroff, at random times and up to several freezes in row.
Sometimes I get dropped to busybox, because of rootfilesystem timeout.

Once X started, system is usable, but disk perfomance is extreme sluggish, dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/null bs=1GB count=1 reports average speed of 10Mb/s....

Can someone point to some kind of temporary fix for this, please? :/