uniata: can't format 2,5GB IDE drive on an Intel 82801BA controller: STATUS_IO_DEVICE_ERROR

Tested with custom rev 41380, with scsiport and uniata debugging enabled.
usetup starts, when it gets to formatting the partition it times out and I get:

(base\setup\usetup\interface\usetup.c:2378) FormatPartition() failed with status 0xc0000185

HD works correctly (WD model: AC22500-23LA, 2559.8MB) with W2K, it's empty.
I've also formatted the drive later with win2k, then launched installation again leaving the filesystem untouched (fat32) but it never moved from progress 0%.
Another "newer" (10GB) hd works though.

I'm sure this hd was working with the old atapi driver as I did some tests with it in the past.