SATA CDDVDRW and kernel 2.6.23.12 problems

["Paul Surgeon" <surgpm@gmail.com>]

I keep getting the following error messages during bootup with kernel
2.6.23.12 :

scsi 4:0:0:0: CD-ROM            TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633A  UO00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
ata3.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xa0)
ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x2 frozen
ata3.00: (irq_stat 0x40000001)
ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:20/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 0
         res 51/60:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x5 (timeout)
ata3: soft resetting port
ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
ata3.00: configured for PIO4
ata3: EH complete

The error repeats many times and it takes about 10 minutes for the box to boot.
If I unplug the DVD drive the problem naturally disappears.
The machine is an Intel SR1530SH.

Below is the output from lspci :
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Server DRAM Controller
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Server Host-Primary PCI Express Bridge
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566DM-2 Gigabit
Network Connection (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e
[Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
04:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82541GI Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (rev 05)

I've tried switching acpi off, using irqpoll, switching from AHCI to
RAID in the BIOS but it makes no difference at all.
I also tried kernel 2.6.21.5 (Slackware 12.0) and the problem is still there.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Paul