hello all,
all kernels since 2.4.2 (including the latest 2.4.4) have resulted in major
ext2 filesystem corruption for me. pre-2.4.2 kernels work fine, as does
2.2.19. generally the errors i see while using the filesystem look like this:

EXT2-fs error (device ide0(3,3)): ext2_readdir: bad entry in directory
 #508411: rec_len is smaller than minimal - offset=0, inode=0, rec_len=0,
 name_len=0

i first saw this in february, along with a few other people, read the thread
here: 
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0102.2/1350.html

basically after booting one of these new kernels, i quickly start to see a lot
of filesystem errors, and i/o errors. on reboot, fsck finds piles of errors,
and eventually clears a lot of inodes. this is a real pain. 

i don't think i'm using any exotic hardware. i've attached the output of
lspci -vv (under 2.4.0-test9, the kernel i'm running now that's stable for
me). i do have one hard disk connected to a promise 20267 ultra ata 100 board,
but that drive has never had any corruption, just the disk connected to the
onboard ide controller. 

i'd really like to help track down the problem, please let me know if i can
provide any further information.

thanks,
ian wehrman