Again this is my Compaq W8000
I've got no sound at all, I ran Configure Sound System in the Control Center. It says I have an Ensoniq ES1371 (which I think is wrong but I need to boot into *gasp* Windows to check) but nothing happens. There seems to be some text right at the end but the terminal window closes quick so I can't see it.

Also if I go into a graphical login (hit ctrl-F1 and login) theres some text that repeats over and over:

hdd: Status error: Status=0x58 {Drive Ready SeekComplete DataRequest}
ide:failed opcode was:unknown
hdd: drive no ready for command

that shows up, then pauses maybe 10 seconds then shows it again, pause, repeat... Makes it almost impossible to work in that mode. I tried playing around with smxi yesterday but its impossible to read whats going on because the error keeps coming...

I should note that I don't know what hdd is, its not in fstab... AntiX is running off hdb, hda has Windows and hdc is just storage. I've 2 cdrom drives (well a cd burner and a dvd burner). I'm not sure if:

/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0

means I've got both listed or not...

Thanks!

First a disclaimer: I'm no Linux expert, far from that. So my suggestions are what I would do to try to solve something.
I did some googling on the messages you're getting. I found some things. Try adding nodma at the boot line and see if the messages stop. Then there are some things to check:

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url was:"http://linux.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.os.linux.hardware/2005-01/0604.html"
linktext was:"Problem with the IDE controller (switch the hd to another one if you have one)"
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These also point to kernel or hardware:
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and
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linktext was:"here"
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url was:"http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/dmaintr-status0x51-driveready-seekcomplete-error-199356/?s=7b94d69ed79a41f84ff3d21424ae2951"
linktext was:"Same here"
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Could be a power supply problem if not solved by changing the IDE controller.

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linktext was:"This is interesting too"
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linktext was:"Kernel issues"
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which could be solved installing another kernel with smxi if you can stop the messages from flooding the console (with nodma).

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So the summary is check the ide cable if its good and properly seated. If there's more than one connector (like ide0 and ide1) you may try to switch the cable from one to the other. There's something about the swap placement in one of the links above. If the messages stop with nodma boot code or if they stop on a reboot use smxi and install another kernel (like a liquorix one).

Thanks!
Disconnecting the second optical drive got rid of the error. No idea what that was about but for now its no big deal. The 2 drives were on the same IDE controller (I have an add on IDE controller in addition to the 2 onboard, all 3 are still in use (3 internal drives and the 1 optical drive))

I ran smxi which didn't help with my audio problem at all. A check in Windows (GASP) reveals that I really do have an Ensoniq ES1371 sound card so its correctly detected. It works in Windows, OpenSUSE and MintLinux but not in AntiX...

Smxi did complain about not being able up to update Linux firmware but I wasn't able to get that to work ever so I finally skipped it. In the past I had trouble (in other distros) with getting non-free components to update, I'd have to change my location but I couldn't find a way to do that today.

Gah, I take it back, I just tried youTube and I've got audio... What the heck? No idea...

Anyway, calling this solved!