Ubuntu 7.04/Issues/USB-SATA race condition causes hang

From DellLinuxWiki

Description: USB device misreads interrupts intermittently due to race condition with ATA driver.
Systems Affected: Dimension 530n.
Impact: Systems hangs during boot up.
Workaround: Force piix driver to load before usb driver. Use following script and run as root:

 #!/bin/sh
 # Place this in /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-top/
 PREREQ=""
 prereqs()
 {
        echo "$PREREQ"
 }
 case $1 in
 # get pre-requisites
 prereqs)
        prereqs
        exit 0
        ;;
 esac
 modprobe -Qb ata_piix

After running this script, execute as root:

$ update-initramfs -u -k all

This command will rebuild the initrd so that the kernel will probe for the SATA driver before the USB driver.

Fix: In progress.