Chicken/egg build problem?

[Justin C. Sherrill]

Jonathon McKitrick wrote:

> I was right in the middle of chmod'ing /var/tmp, when I got an ata/atapi
> timeout, and the system became unresponsive.  I could type at the
> terminal, but nothing happened.

I'm applying occam's razor: make sure your ide cables are tightly connected. 
Last time I saw this behavior, the cable running to the main drive had been
just barely tilted out of the socket.