IDE kernel messages after potato install

[bxf4@psu.edu (Brian P. Flaherty)]

Hello,

I have had two messages in kern.log since installing potato 2.2-r3
yesterday.  First, brief background: Gateway Solo 9300 with a 450 Mhz
Pentium, 288 MB RAM, 12 GB IDE hd and IDE CDROM.  Phoenix BIOS 16.53.
Windows 98 currently resides on /dev/hda1, but I haven't added it back
to lilo yet.  I have been running RH 6.2 and then 7.0 on it without
any obvious problems.  The first problem occurred when I was
un'tarring a pretty big file, my old /usr/local/ directory:

Jul 16 04:33:55 wenho kernel: hda: read_intr: status=0x59 
{ DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
Jul 16 04:33:55 wenho kernel: hda: read_intr: error=0x40 
{ UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=16490098, sector=3188215
Jul 16 04:33:55 wenho kernel: end_request: I/O error, 
dev 03:06 (hda), sector 3188215

In looking on the web, it looks like people have said that this is a
hardware error, but it seems strange that a hd error would just pop up
the day after I install Debian.

The second one is a clock time error that occurred when installing
software from a CDROM:

Jul 16 15:18:36 wenho kernel: probable hardware bug: clock timer 
configuration lost - probably a VIA686a.
Jul 16 15:18:36 wenho kernel: probable hardware bug: restoring 
chip configuration.

So, my question is are these really hardware problems that Debian is
showing me and other OS's hide or don't notice?  Or could these errors
be due to the fact that I am using the kernel off the Debian CD?
Might they disappear if I build my own kernel?  Finally, are these
significant?  Do they occur and then the system tries again and then
it works, or are these serious errors that should be corrected?

Thanks for your time and any suggestions.

Brian Flaherty

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