error libata?

[Peter Lesterhuis]

A short time after booting (F10) keyboard en mouse are freezing. When I 
get the time to open a terminal I see this in /var/log/messages:
...
Dec 27 12:13:17 localhost kernel: ata5.00:
                           mnd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0
Dec 27 12:13:17 cdb 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00
Dec 27 12:13:17 res 40/00:03:00:00/00:00:00:00:00:/a0 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
Dec 27 12:13:17 ata5.00: status: { DRDY }
Dec 27 12:13:17 ata5: EH complete
Dec 27 12:13:17 ata5.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 
0x6 frozen

I found some information about these messages on 
http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Libata_error_messages.
I booted with the options: "noapic", or "acpi=off" or "pci=nomsi", but 
none of them are useful.
Does this mean I have an issue with the hard disk or the SATA-controller?
Does anyone have a suggestion?
Peter