Comment 87 for bug 220706

The problem here is that the message just tells you there is something wrong operating the disk. And reading through the report this has been resolved for some by replacing cables, bios settings or even memory. And this is really hard, if not impossible to get solved. Ok, enough whining.

Those with the problem (and I'd like to concentrate on Jaunty, even better Karmic or a kernel from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds as some things might be solved in newer kernels). If the same problem persists, the dmesg output helps to get further information. Like what DMA speeds does the host claim to support, what speeds the drive, which is chosen, with NCQ or without, ...
It is also possible to influence the configuration with libata.force (on the kernel/grub command line). For example, if the error message say ata1.xx, then libata.force=1:<opt>[,<opt>] will change the config for that port. The options would be (taken from Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt):

        libata.force= [LIBATA] Force configurations. The format is comma
                        separated list of "[ID:]VAL" where ID is
                        PORT[:DEVICE]. PORT and DEVICE are decimal numbers
                        matching port, link or device. Basically, it matches
                        the ATA ID string printed on console by libata. If
                        the whole ID part is omitted, the last PORT and DEVICE
                        values are used. If ID hasn't been specified yet, the
                        configuration applies to all ports, links and devices.

                        If only DEVICE is omitted, the parameter applies to
                        the port and all links and devices behind it. DEVICE
                        number of 0 either selects the first device or the
                        first fan-out link behind PMP device. It does not
                        select the host link. DEVICE number of 15 selects the
                        host link and device attached to it.

                        The VAL specifies the configuration to force. As long
                        as there's no ambiguity shortcut notation is allowed.
                        For example, both 1.5 and 1.5G would work for 1.5Gbps.
                        as there's no ambiguity shortcut notation is allowed.
                        For example, both 1.5 and 1.5G would work for 1.5Gbps.
                        The following configurations can be forced.

                        * Cable type: 40c, 80c, short40c, unk, ign or sata.
                          Any ID with matching PORT is used.

                        * SATA link speed limit: 1.5Gbps or 3.0Gbps.

                        * Transfer mode: pio[0-7], mwdma[0-4] and udma[0-7].
                          udma[/][16,25,33,44,66,100,133] notation is also
                          allowed.

                        * [no]ncq: Turn on or off NCQ.

                        * nohrst, nosrst, norst: suppress hard, soft
                          and both resets.

                        If there are multiple matching configurations changing
                        the same attribute, the last one is used.