Can you try running memtest86+ for 12-24 hours, and see if that turns up anything? Sometimes flaky memory can result in very confusing problems / symptoms --- espeially when it almost but not always works correctly.
The other thing which I might be suspicious about is if there might be some subtle flaw (either in the design, or your specific mainboard --- i.e., maybe a slightly cracked trace in the PCB) that is affecting DMA transfers from the HDD, but not from the USB stick. If you can borrow a 2TB USB-attached HDD, and try that, and that works, but a 2TB drive attached via SATA fails, then I would be deeply suspicious of your mainboard. Did this ever work before? What changed recently? Did you upgrade to a newer version of the distro, kernel, etc.? Has the system been recently moved (dropped, etc.)? Or is this a completely new installation? Sorry for asking such basic questions, but this really doesn't smell like a software bug at this point. - Ted -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1393151 Title: mkfs.ext3 causes kernel panic on new WD 6 TB drive To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/e2fsprogs/+bug/1393151/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs