Disk related system hangs

[Ross Boylan <RossBoylan@stanfordalumni.org>]

For the 2nd time in about a month my system has hung while trying to
access the disk.  The first time the performance gradually
deteriorated, and when I switch to a virtual console (if that's the
lingo: ctl-alt-F1) I saw lots of errors about being unable to access
the hard drive.  It became completely unresponsive and I had to turn
off the power.

I opened the case, reseated the connectors, and all was well.

Though I've noticed some similar slowings over the last few days, this
time it just hung.  I believe that the disk had been powered down.
When I went to access it the access light just stayed on.  I saw no
error messages when I switch to vt1, but when I tried to switch back I
just had blank screen.  Hiting the restart button got me to the BIOS
start screens, where it stopped.  I powered down and restarted
(without opening the case).  Again, all is well.

I have not had this problem while under other OS's on the same
machine.

I'm running woody with kernel 2.4.2 built from the kernel source
package.  The disks are IDE; my main working disk is Maxtor13G, with
33 as its peak xfer rate (this is from my memory).  I have a Gigabyte
GA 71XE4 motherboard, with AMD chips (756 is probably the relevant
one).  Athlon 800 MHz CPU.

Is this any kind of a known kernel problem?  Or does it ring any
bells?  The symptoms make me suspect this is a software problem,
though perhaps that's being optimistic.

Thanks.