I've run into what looks like the same thing on a new Dell Latitude x300. An interesting twist is that this bug only manifests itself if I boot the -686 variant of the kernel; the default -386 variant boots without any problems. If I don't plug the drive in, everything works fine at first, but plugging the drive in and unplugging it causes the kernel to go nuts in the same way (it looks like all attempts to access the hard drive begin to fail, causing the machine to lock up). This happens on both -386 and -686, btw.
Between this and some other problems here, I'm starting to wonder if 2.6.8 is a wise choice for the sarge release kernel -- it seems to barely limp along on a lot of newer machines, and it looks like we'll have to choose between getting automatic security fixes and having a kernel that actually works. Daniel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]