2) Your harddisk is having problems with UDMA negotiation. While UDMA is
backwards compatible, there was a bug in the old implementations where it
would hang while negotiating. Download the UDMA utilities from your
hardware vendor to hardlock the UDMA to some value that is support instead
of relying on autonegotiation.
I was typing a response suggesting this when your reply came in. :)
The 440BX is especially prone to this problem, as ATA/66 was in development
when it (the BX) was being designed, but the chipset itself only fully
supports ATA/33. It is rumored that Intel was considering putting in ATA/66
support with the BX release, but it is likely that the spec was too
incomplete by delivery time. When ATA/66 drives came out, it had problems
negotiating with BX host controllers. This issue can exist with any drive >
ATA/33.
Greg
