Well, one never knows.. this one looked bad in the log that was posted, but dodgy chip/drive select signals on the IDE header can cause all kinds of weird effects.

I suppose this here may be a good diagnosis tip for us all:

If the CS4231A chip is reporting as failed, then unplug the hard drive cable and try again. If it then reports as okay, we know it's (most likely) an IDE header issue.

The idea being that with the hard drives connected, they can respond when they shouldn't due to bad select signals on the header.

Cheers!