dma lost interrupt COMPAQ AMD

[digitall2000]

hey,
this is a compaq presario 5154 AMD K6 500MHz
i have never had an AMD
this was a gimme

so i would like some pointers, hints, suggestions
i just setup a old pIII and that went smooth
this one has been a nightmare
so i am starting over

when i run fdisk from the live cd i get:
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status ==0x64
hda:dma interrupt recovery
hda:dma lost interrupt

i searched that one and it could be a cable
but i have tried three different ones

it is a maxtor drive
and their utility program scan the drive and says:
"certified error free"

the fdisk runs fine
if i run fdisk from one of the many boot disks - no problems

i also noted when booting from the live cd (minimal install)
at the point it runs hdparm on /dev/hda
it states disabling irq #14
well that is the irq for the ide controller

should i set my pci in the bios to auto or not?

any hints or tips

thanks in advance for any and all help
lance

so after checking the disk and still having the DMA problem
i low level formatted the diskm with the maxtor util disk,
rescanned the drive, ran fdisk from a boot disk and fdisk
said it needed to write dos something or other
(sorry i did not write it down) to the drive
now i no longer get the DMA error!!!!!
******but it would be nice to know why******

[moocha]