I have set up a multiboot setup with Windows 2000 Pro and 12 flavours of Linux. I have two IDE HDDs (80 Gb & 120 Gb Seagate Barracuda) and one 80 Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA 1 HDD. All was OK till I installed Ubuntu 5.10, Kubuntu 5.10 & PCQ Linux (a reworked version of Fedora Core 4). All three use the 2.6.15 kernel. The problem in all three distros is during bootup, after the message "Starting HAL daemon.." you get a stream of error messages "ATA1 sector input output error.." (or something similar) Finally the system does boot, but the distro appears 'broken. Reverting back to version 5.05 of Ubuntu & Kubuntu sorted out the problem. In the case of PCQ Linux, I installed a Gentoo 2005.1 (recompiled) kernel (2.6.8). The problen stopped. When I tried replacing it with a recompiled vanilla 2.6.15 kernel, the same problem comes up. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this problem, and if so any workarounds?? battle-axe

How about using a working kernel on a boot floppy to try booting the broken systems...? It does sound as though you need something enabled in your kernel, try a diff between the two config files to see what is changed. Alternatively disable HAL on boot up, at least until you can sort the problem.

Thanks, I finally ran out of patience and installed Fedora Core 4 (It has a 2.6.11 kernel I think). Now it is OK. I plan to try Ubuntu 5.10 with HAL disabled one of these days. battle-axe