Comment 39 for bug 340014

Unfortunately, even single hdparm invocations seem to trigger the issue:

called with args: -B 254 /dev/sda
init-+-NetworkManager-+-dhclient
[...]
     |-hald---hald-runner-+-hal-system-powe---hal-system-powe---pm-powersave---95hdparm-apm---hdparm---pstree

[ 1625.989172] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
[ 1625.989213] ata1.00: cmd c8/00:40:67:f4:58/00:00:00:00:00/e2 tag 0 dma 32768 in
[ 1625.989219] res 40/00:fe:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
[ 1625.989234] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
[ 1631.028084] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
[ 1636.012086] ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
[ 1636.012109] ata1: soft resetting link
[ 1636.194513] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 1636.194536] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0
[ 1636.194569] ata1: EH complete

The above error was triggered by re-connecting the NC10's power adapter.

BTW, the BIOS is already the most recent version (11CA; as somebody suggested a BIOS update via mail).