160gb maxtor with promise ultra 100

[Holger Lubitz <h.lubitz@internet-factory.de>]

hi,

recently i installed two 160gb maxtor drives. using the latest ac-kernel
(.19-pre2-ac3), they were detected correctly. however, the promise ultra
100 (detected as pdc 20267) hangs at the partition check. last thing it
prints is "hde:" and it's dead. however, if i connect the drives to the
onboard piix3 ide, they are detected correctly, survive the partition
check, and _do_ work as 160gb drives, but slow (piix3 only supports
mdma2, no udma). if i boot the latest non-ac-kernel available on the
machine (which is the not so recent 2.4.14) the drives are misdetected
as only 137gb (of course, no 48 bit support) but otherwise the machine
works, even with the drives connected to the promise.

so the situation is - either i use the full 160 gb, but only mdma2 data
transfer. or i use udma 100, but only 137 gb of the drives. i can't seem
to have both.

i am out of ideas what might be causing this. of course i could just
throw the promise out and leave the drives connected to the on board
controller, but... other ideas?

tia,
holger