Kernel 2.6.27: Problems with DVD drive/nVidia MCP51

[Elad Lahav <elahav@uwaterloo.ca>]

After upgrading from 2.6.26.5 to 2.6.27.4, my DVD drive started having problems during 
boot time. Here is the relevant part from dmesg:

ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
ata2.00: ATAPI: HL-DT-ST DVD+/-RW GSA-T11N, A103, max UDMA/33
ata2.00: applying bridge limits
ata2.00: Drive reports diagnostics failure. This may indicate a drive
ata2.00: fault or invalid emulation. Contact drive vendor for information.
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3250820AS      3.AD PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata2.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:24:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 pio 36 in
          cdb 12 00 00 00 24 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
          res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata2.00: status: { DRDY }
ata2: hard resetting link
[continue ad inifitum....]

The drive is reported as "HL-DT-ST DVD+/-RW GSA-T11N, A103", connected to an nVidia MCP51 
controller. Googling around, I found similar complaints in the past for other nVidia 
controllers using the sata_nv driver (though I couldn't find anything about the MCP51). I 
tried compiling the version of sata_nv that comes with 2.6.26.5, but that did not solve my 
problems.

I can provide further details if necessary.

--Elad