Comment 18 for bug 106821

The same here with Feisty 2.6.20-16-generic, also tried the previous kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
smartmontools do not work.

Also tried to upgrade smartmontools to 5.37 (used the *.deb package from sourceforge and confirmed that filenames and places where they go are identical to the official 5.36 coming with Ubuntu) -> does nort work:

------------
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
Password: *****
smartctl version 5.37 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 family
Device Model: ST3320620AS
Serial Number: 9QF22C7X
Firmware Version: 3.AAJ
User Capacity: 320.072.933.376 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Wed Aug 8 16:11:51 2007 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Error SMART Status command failed
Please get assistance from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
Values from ATA status return descriptor are:
 00 09 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 50
A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.
--------------------

The really annoying thing is that my 'old' openSUSE 10.3 (kernel 2.6.18.8-0.5) works perfectly.
Se a sample outputs on the very same hardware here:

--------
Capabilities:

pp:/home/ingo # smartctl -c /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.37 [i686-suse-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                                        was completed without error.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection:
Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine
completed
                                        without error or no self-test
has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 430) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection
on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 115) minutes.
-----------

or the reading of the attributes also works fine:

------------
pp:/home/ingo # smartctl -A /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.37 [i686-suse-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE
UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 114 100 006 Pre-fail Always - 66008891
  3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 096 095 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
  4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 184
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 074 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 28829419
  9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1415
 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 194
187 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 Unknown_Attribute 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 060 058 045 Old_age Always - 672727080
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 040 042 000 Old_age Always - 40 (Lifetime Min/Max 0/19)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 068 065 000 Old_age Always - 12537415
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
---------

Hardware here is ASUS M2N-E with nVidia nForce 570-Ultra sATA controller and
attached Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series sATA HD.

After all I have to conclude that it must be the Feisty kernel causing that failure.