Comment 22 for bug 206635

I have a Dell Vostro 200 and Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and I've seen the same problem.

At first I thought it was a hard drive error but now seeing this thread (and it's only 10 months old) I'm thinking it's a software issue.

[...]ata1.00: revalidation failed (errno = -5)
[...]ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 Serr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen
[...]ata2.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:24:00/00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 pio 36 in
[...]ata2.00: status { DRDY }

I've tried SystemRescueCD e2fsck -c -v -f /dev/sda1 but it didn't help "normal boot". Strangely sometimes I do manage to get the system to boot using "recovery mode".

Kernel 2.6.24-19 and -24 (I upgraded once)

it's interesting that "recovery mode" /boot/grub/menu.lst has only "single"... but following the advice of
nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

find the first line with kernel (not #kernel).... it should be under title Ubuntu 8.0...
root (hd0,0)
kernel ...
delete the "quiet splash" bit and replace it with "irqpoll all_generic_ide"

Exit and Save (ctrl+x)

I also ran update-grub just in case...

THANKS! this SOLUTION WORKED for me!