Hey, ubuntu (x64) on trying to boot, is forcing a fsck, and in turn this causes a kernel panic.
Here is the log for booting up on 'recovery mode'

Ubuntu Hardy
Kernel: both 2.6.24-17-generic and 2.6.24-16-generic

During bootup in 'recovery mode'
fsck 1.40.8
/dev/sda3 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.

ata3.00: exception Emask 0x1 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x100000 action 0x0
ata3.00: CPB resp_flash 0x11: , CMD error
ata3: SError: {DISPAR }
ata3.00 cmd c8/00:6c:d8:38:a3/00:00:00:00:00/e4 tag 0 dma 55296 in
ata3.00 status: { DRDY ERR }
ata3.00: error: { UNC }

HARDWARE ERROR
CPU 0: Machine Check Exception 4 Bank 4: b200000000070f0f
TSC ed4932c899
This is not a software problem!
Run through mcelog --ascii to decode and contact your hardware vendor
Kernel panic - not syncing: Machine check
Clocksource tsc unstable (delta - 4687310665 ns)

I also tried using the fedora live cd (my ubuntu one is scratched) and it gave similar results when running fsck manually.

fsck /dev/sda3
fsck 1.40.8
/dev/sda3 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0000000000000004
CPU 0: Banks 4: 3200000000070f0f
Kernel panic - not syncing: CPU context corrupt


I can still mount sda3 (on the fedora live cd) absolutely fine, and view all files etc. So i'm a bit confused as to whether the drive is dead, or if it is saveable etc.

As a side note could someone please tell me how I can prevent ubuntu forcing the fsck. To be honest this is a serious problem in my opinion, my computer was totally unusable because there is no way for me to skip the fsck, which very almost messed up my revision for some exams. There should be a way for the user to overide the fsck if needed. Or is there a hidden option you can set in grub I don't know about?

Cheers for any help