> in my notebook's /etc/apm/battery file, I run "atactl wd0 setidle 60".
> Now whenever the drive spins down, I see this on the console:

> Is there a known cure to this problem?

Though I'm not sure what's wrong, I had same experience and now I use
setstandby instead of setidle, which almost works fine for me.

Atsushi Onoe