ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27

["Francois Duranleau" <xiao.bai.xiong@gmail.com>]

Hi!

I have a somewhat strange problem at home. Lately, I decided to
finally update my kernel from 2.4.27 to 2.6.18 (actually now it
would be 2.6.21, but when I tried it was 2.6.18). I installed the
source package, compiled the kernel as I used to with the previous
one (didn't change much the configuration) and installed the image
(the boot loader I use is grub).

Now, when I boot my computer using the new kernel, I get an error
message during filesystem check saying it contains errors (sorry, I
don't have a more precise error message, and I have no logs) and
it then mounts the filesystem read-only. If I boot back with the
2.4.27 kernel, no problems. I do get often though an error message
like this:

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }

and then sometimes:

ide0: reset: success

I have been having this for a long time (even after I changed to a
new hard drive), and only when DMA is active, but I never noticed
anything bad happening except for those error messages.

Recently, I tried to update my system, but the new glibc package
requires kernel 2.6, which I can't run. So now I am stuck. I can't
upgrade my system unless I make the 2.6 kernel work.

Anybody has an idea of what may be wrong? Why do I get filesystem
errors with the 2.6 kernel but not with 2.4?

For reference, my system runs lenny with a custom-built kernel
(2.4.27, and I use kernel-package; same for 2.6.18; 2.4.27 is
compiled with gcc-3.3 and 2.6.18 with gcc-4.1). It's CPU is an old
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1GHz with 1.25GB of memory. The hard
drive is a Western Digital 80GB. There is no dual-boot.

I posted some details about my kernel configurations here:

http://www-etud.iro.umontreal.ca/~duranlef/linux-config/

--
Francois