As discussed with Ben on IRC, I built the viacxxx moduled and included it in the initrd. (FYI, copying it into /lib/modules doesn't take it to the initrd, and blacklisting pata_via doesn't keep it from the initrd - I had to cpio in/out and hand-tune the initrd by hand.)
With the viacxxx (without pata_via) the power-off is quiet, with no ugly sound. -- hard drive cries out in pain at power-off https://launchpad.net/bugs/72765 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
