..
Hey, we just found something which doesn't crash my Vaio!
sony:/home/akpm/hdparm-7.7> 0 ./hdparm --drq-hsm-error /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
triggering "stuck DRQ" host state machine error
do_drq_hsm_error: Success
ata status=0x58 ata error=0x00
ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen
ata3.00: cmd ec/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 0 res 58/00:01:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x2 (HSM violation)
ata3: soft resetting port
ata3.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata3: EH complete
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 195371568 512-byte hardware sectors (100030 MB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
How dull. (ata_piix)