Here's a fresh dmesg. Recalcitrante - did "hdparm -d1" etc work after modifying the kernel? I am not a programmer (some may have guessed...;) so messing around with the kernel is a bit like a layman performing brain surgery. So. Should I wait until there is an official fix, or attempt to learn the black art of kernel building from scratch? Here's a fresh hdparm -Tt, followed by smartctl --all (for good measure): /dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 522 MB in 2.00 seconds = 260.48 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 112 MB in 3.13 seconds = 35.76 MB/sec (A bit sluggish in my book) === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: SAMSUNG HM080GC Serial Number: S15HJD0Q204757 Firmware Version: LP100-10 User Capacity: 80,026,361,856 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 7 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0 Local Time is: Wed Feb 27 13:45:07 2008 CET ==> WARNING: May need -F samsung or -F samsung2 enabled; see manual for details. SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity was never started. Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled. Self-test execution status: ( 32) The self-test routine was interrupted by the host with a hard or soft reset. Total time to complete Offline data collection: ( 31) 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: ( 2) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 31) minutes. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 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 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 252 252 025 Pre-fail Always - 2062 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 252 252 010 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000e 252 252 051 Old_age Always - 0 8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0024 252 252 015 Old_age Offline - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 88 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 252 252 051 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4 191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2510 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 109 088 000 Old_age Always - 43 (Lifetime Min/Max 18/50) 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 111 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 252 252 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0036 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x0032 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 0 223 Load_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 66 225 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3906 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t] SMART Selective Self-Test Log Data Structure Revision Number (0) should be 1 SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0 Warning: ATA Specification requires selective self-test log data structure revision number = 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Interrupted [00% left] (0-65535) 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay. ---------------------------- Hope this helps! -)