One more data point. In addition to the Kingspec PA25-128 drives, which are exhibiting the problems above, I set up a couple of players with IDE/mSATA adaptors. Specifically, the Chenyang mSATA mini PCI-E SATA enclosure, with a Goldendisk mSATA 128GB mini SSD. That combo seems to work just fine in the player. I've got one that's been running for over 48 hours straight with no issues.

All of the Kingspec drives are byte-copies of a master disk created using the Chenyang/Goldendisk combo, copied using dd on a Mac.

Here's the relevant logs for the good drive, in case it helps shed light on any differences with the errors on the Kingspec drives. I'm especially confused by the "attempt to access beyond end of drive" errors on the Kingspec.

Thanks for any insight or suggestions,
--Dan.

Code:
empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg55-hijack-v515 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Wed Jul 20 09:24:02 EDT 2011
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40103926) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15000k/16M available (996k code, 20k reserved, 364k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9cb88
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v515 by Mark Lord")
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004800).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized:  16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0100
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0100
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0004
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0100
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0100
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0100
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff55
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffea
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xffff
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff55
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff55
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff55
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xff55
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: YCdisk YCMSA-128MS, 114473MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=14593/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:28:0f:56
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Com&#65533;Starting player
Timezone: Jamaica
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
kftpd: listening on port 21
khttpd: listening on port 80
  player.cpp        : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul  5 2004
Vcb: 0x40892000

Code:
empeg:/empeg/bin# hdparm -I /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       YCdisk YCMSA-128MS
        Serial Number:      YC0415171221128M0799
        Firmware Revision:  Q0407A
        Media Serial Num:   &#65533;
        Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5
Standards:
        Supported: 9 8 7 6 5
        Likely used: 9
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   16383
        heads           16      16
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
        LBA    user addressable sectors:  234441648
        LBA48  user addressable sectors:  234441648
        device size with M = 1024*1024:      114473 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:      120034 MBytes (120 GB)
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 1   Current = 1
        Advanced power management level: disabled
        DMA: mdma0 *mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    SMART feature set
                Security Mode feature set
           *    Power Management feature set
           *    Write cache
                Look-ahead
           *    Host Protected Area feature set
           *    WRITE_BUFFER command
           *    READ_BUFFER command
           *    NOP cmd
           *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
                Advanced Power Management feature set
           *    SET_MAX security extension
           *    48-bit Address feature set
           *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
           *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
           *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
           *    SMART error logging
           *    SMART self-test
           *    General Purpose Logging feature set
           *    WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
           *    64-bit World wide name
           *    SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
           *    SATA-II signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
Security:
        Master password revision code = 65534
                supported
        not     enabled
        not     locked
        not     frozen
        not     expired: security count
                supported: enhanced erase
        2min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 2min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 0000
        NAA             : 0
        IEEE OUI        : 0
        Unique ID       : 00
Integrity word not set (found 0x0000, expected 0x43a5)

Code:
empeg:/empeg/bin# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1             1         5     40131    5  Extended
/dev/hda2             6        10     40162+  83  Linux
/dev/hda3            11        13     24097+  10  OPUS
/dev/hda4            14     14593 117113850   83  Linux
/dev/hda5             1         3     24034+  83  Linux
/dev/hda6             4         5     16033+  82  Linux swap