Bug#401035: Workaround for this ST340823A drive or kernel bug?

[Mikko Rapeli <mikko.rapeli@iki.fi>]

Hello,

I just hit this bug too. The drive has been working without errors on 
sarge kernels for a couple of years and a badblocks read only test just 
finished without errors (non-destruct. write test ongoing, fsck's for 
the filesystems report no errors), so this is 
very likely not a defective IDE drive. Kernel 2.6.8-16sarge7
reports the drive as:

hdd: ST340823A, ATA DISK drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdd: max request size: 128KiB
hdd: Host Protected Area detected.
        current capacity is 78165360 sectors (40020 MB)
        native  capacity is 78165361 sectors (40020 MB)
hdd: 78165360 sectors (40020 MB) w/1024KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, 
UDMA(33)

With 2.6.18.dfsg.1-12etch2 I get tons of similar errors early at boot 
and can't stop the screen. I think the seek fail messages are there and 
all I get to syslog on another drive is:

Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 0
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: printk: 897 messages suppressed.
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 1
...
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 78155993
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 51809625
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 0
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 63
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 19663560
Jul 25 18:07:29 nalle kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdd, sector 51809625

I see this has been reported here and there ( 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/26119 
), but has anyone seen even a workaround for this?

-Mikko