The sata_nv driver for kernels 2.6.8+ does not work properly with the NForce3 250 chipset when using an SATA drive. This bug manifests itself in the inability to reboot after upgrade to one of these kernsl or installation. This may be a problem only if booting from the SATA drive, not if the SATA drive is a secondary drive.

This bug has been widely identified and validated for other distributions (see the Red Hat reference below).

There is a tentative fix (which I have applied -- apparently successfully -- in my case), but it has not yet been officially vetted and blessed (see the OSDL reference for further details).

Here are some relevant references on-line:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=135302
http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3352

I made the change suggested at bugme.osdl.org to the kernel 2.6.9.1 sata_nv.c file:

--- sata_nv.c_orig 2004-10-07 23:06:40.721827293 -0400
+++ sata_nv.c 2004-10-07 23:10:45.234309240 -0400
@@ -221,7 +221,7 @@
static struct ata_port_info nv_port_info = {
.sht = &nv_sht,
.host_flags = ATA_FLAG_SATA |
- ATA_FLAG_SATA_RESET |
+ /*ATA_FLAG_SATA_RESET |*/
ATA_FLAG_SRST |
ATA_FLAG_NO_LEGACY,
.pio_mask = NV_PIO_MASK,

recompiled the kernel with no other changes, upgraded, and booted and have been running and rebooting using a single SATA drive without incident.