Ata driver causes boot problems

[Swiftmind]

Hello.

I am working on a computer at work. It is a multi OS system primarily using
Red Hat 5 Enterprise. Just for reference I am new user to Linux. So far
their version of Red Hat 5 is on both of my computers which have the same
behavior. We are having problems with the ata probing at boot up of Red Hat.
After a day of searching on Google and such I noticed many others have had
this problem but for different Linux OSs. Any help on removing this annoying
ata trait is welcomed. I will print out the system information below.

[root at localhost ~]# lshal | grep -i bios

smbios.chassis.type = 'Mini Tower' (string)

smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'Dell Inc.' (string)

smbios.system.uuid = '44454C4C-5600-1032-804B-C7C04F504331' (string)

smbios.system.serial = 'GV2KPC1' (string)

smbios.system.version = 'Not Specified' (string)

smbios.system.product = 'OptiPlex 745' (string)

smbios.system.manufacturer = 'Dell Inc.' (string)

smbios.bios.release_date = '12/04/2006' (string)

smbios.bios.version = '2.1.0' (string)

smbios.bios.vendor = 'Dell Inc.' (string)


 [root at localhost ~]# uname -r

2.6.18-8.el5


 The system uses Grub to pick which OS to start up. Here is the
menu.lstfile for Grub for Red Hat's section.

#boot=/dev/sda

default=0

timeout=5

splashimage=(hd0,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

hiddenmenu

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (2.6.18-8.el5)

root (hd0,4)

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb

# kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet

initrd /initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img



 After a day of web searching I noticed an update came out a few months ago
for the kernel of FC6 and other systems that got rid of this error. The
version of my kernel is above, should I update it to solve this issue? Is
there an update for Red Hat's kernel yet?


 Many mentioned adding the command "options ata_piix noprobe" to
modprobe.conf but I was hesitant to do this because I saw many had major
problems after they did this. Also I discovered this morning that the hard
drive is a sata which will be affected by this change...I think. Anyone
think adding this option is a good idea?


 Lastly I found a patch to the libata at
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ide/13408/ which should solve the
problem according to the message author. But I can not find the libata or
the driver files/folder... so I have yet to look at those files directly.
Has anyone tried this approach? Do you know if it would work?


 I know this ata problem is not a big deal but it is annoying, especially on
a system that we will be switching back and forth on OSs to test new
software. Plus the boss is complaining so I need to get rid of it ;). So any
help or guidance toward a solution is welcomed.

Thanks for your time.