Ubuntu 11.10 install failure, can't access SATA disk (VIA VT6420)

[Bruce Pieterse]

On Mon 31 Oct 2011 13:21:36 SAST, Chris Green wrote:
> I have a problem trying to install Ubuntu 11.10.
>
> Originally I had Ubuntu 10.04 installed and that ran fine until the
> latest kernel upgrade from 2.6.32 to 2.6.35.  I then found that if I
> selected the old (2.6.32) kernel from GRUB at startup the system still
> booted and ran OK but selecting the default (2.6.35) kernel the system
> failed to boot.  Trying recovery mode with the 2.6.35 kernel produced
> lots of SATA timeout errors and then a kernel panic.
>
> So I decided to do a complete clean install of Ubuntu 11.10, that fails
> with a disk I/O error:-
>
>      "input/output error during write on /dev/sda"
>
> I have tried both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of 11.10 and both do
> exactly the same thing.
>
> Installing ubuntu 10.04 from my original CD (which has an even older
> kernel of course) works perfectly, no problems at all.
>
> So it looks as if kernels from 2.6.35 onwards have a problem with my VIA
> VT6420 SATA hardware.  However I can't find anything very specific
> searching with Google.
>
> Has anyone got any ideas what I can do to fix this?
>

Hi Chris,

I would recommend filing a bug report over at launchpad.net to get this 
resolved.

-- 
Best of luck,

Bruce