ATA_IDENTIFY timed out during 5.3 install

[shaunm at xecu.net]

I had the unfortunate tragedy of a power failure at my hosting noc, my server
lost  almost all its data (thank god for backups) it's now an opportune time to
upgrade my 5.1 install to 5.3, however i get several problems when trying to
install, if i  run off of the cd for install, i get a hex dump and "BTX halted"
at the bottom.  Similar to this:

int=0000000d  err=00000000  efl=00030246  eip=0000ffff
eax=8000f000  ebx=00000000  ecx=0000feff  edx=00000082
esi=00000002  edi=0000000c  ebp=00000002  esp=0000fffc
cs=cc00  ds=9ec0  es=44ac    fs=0000  gs=0000  ss=9d58
cs:eip=ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
       ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
ss:esp=ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
       ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
BTX halted

this is not mine and i don't have access to my box's console right now.

However if i use the floppies i can get all the way through to the setup,
however multiple ATA_IDENTIFY errors crop up.  I have 1 ide 60G disk and two
150G sata disks, all of the disks have this error and setup says that i don't
have any disks to install to.  I know that there is a workaround mentioned in
this problem report: 
i386/73706  jhb  ATA_IDENTIFY timed out under FreeBSD 5.3

However, that looks to be for an upgrade or at least assuming the os is already
installed.  My question is how would i make this patch effective so that i can
run an install onto my IDE drive?

Thanks,
Shaun