Harddrive access freezes my system

[MrWorf]

After searching high and low, I can't find any info on how to solve this problem I'm experiencing.

I've installed a clean Gentoo 1.4rc2 today on my brandspanking new shuttle box, and after getting X11 up and running, I found that every time the harddrive is accessed the mouse, keyboard and programs freeze. This makes it a pain to work with the computer. Even in the console this problem exists (allthough I was running X11 in the background when I tested...)

First idea for this behaviour would be that DMA wasn't enabled and thus, for some reason, bogged down my system when accessed. But after consulting the settings for my harddrive, I found that it was infact running with DMA enabled so this was not the case.

Does anyone else have this problem? Did you solve it? How?

The system is a Shuttle SB51G with Nvidia GF4Ti4400 and a Seagate Baracuda V 120GB (all the specs for the system can be found at shuttle, which is why I'm not dumping a complete printout of the devices in the box ... Anway, it uses intel chips, 845PE if I remember correctly)

Couldn't find any strange line in the log either, so any clues would be helpful.

/Henric