Comment 10 for bug 229747

I have this error with my Acer Aspire 9410 running the latest Ubuntu 9.10:
ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0xd0)
ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
ata1: soft resetting link

Before I tried Fedora 12 with the same problem.
I found many links about this problem and applied the manual fix: insert a CD ( see the post http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2508650&postcount=5). It works but looks like a fix from my Grand Ma :).
Previously the laptop was running Windows XP for 3 1/2 years without problem (except when using the software to burn a CD/DVD, I got exactly the same issue, the UI freezing for few seconds but quite frequently).