OBUNTU: new kernel; new failures

[Paul King]

UBUNTU has just installed a new kernel. I have recently noted that I
have been getting errors in /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog about
20-40 seconds apart. Here is a sample of the messages:

========8< SNIP 8<=============8< SNIP 8<======================

Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129183] ata4.01: exception Emask
0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen
Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129209] ata4.01: cmd
a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/b0 tag 0
Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129211]          cdb 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129214]          res
40/00:03:00:08:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129219] ata4.01: status:
{ DRDY }
Jun  2 21:01:51 aragorn kernel: [185885.129257] ata4: soft resetting
link
Jun  2 21:02:23 aragorn kernel: [185916.970328] ata4.00: configured for
UDMA/33
Jun  2 21:02:23 aragorn kernel: [185917.149782] ata4.01: configured for
PIO0
Jun  2 21:02:23 aragorn kernel: [185917.149817] ata4: EH complete

========8< SNIP 8<=============8< SNIP 8<======================

This gives me a creepy feeling that one of my hard drives are failing.
Can anyone interpret these messages and tell me for sure? What is
"ata4.0x", where x is an integer? Frankly, these errors may have existed
before the install; it's just the first time I've noticed it.

I am using kernel version "2.6.24-17-generic", freshly installed.

Thanks for any help.

Paul King


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