F14 install freezes due to disk problems

[Lewis NH2]

Good Evening,

I am trying to install F14 on my box... Without any success so far.

The problem: when it comes to write the partitioning scheme to the
disk, the system freezes.
This occurs with the following CD images:
- Fedora 14 LXDE live image. Installation using "Install to Disk" script.
- Fedora 14, regular i386 image
- Fedora 15 (beta) LXDE live image

I used the F14 Live CD and performed additional tests. In particular,
I tried to partition manually /dev/sdb (the disk where I want to
install F14) using fdisk from the shell:
- everything is OK until I execute the fdisk's 'w' command.
- fdisk then hangs for about 10-15 seconds. The system is still
working (I can change to another tty, have a shell etc.).
- after those 15s have elapsed, the system freezes (CapsLock doesn't
react anymore). At this point, I have no other option but power off
the machine.

strace reveals that the last syscall before the freeze is:
ioctl(3,BLKRRPART,0x5...). That is during the re-read of the
partition. A similar freeze could be also produced by dd'ing the
/dev/sdb disk. There is no hardware problem with the disk itself. I
can read/write partition on that disk without problem using another
distro.

You'll find the relevant system info gathered during a LiveCD session
on pastebin.com (dmesg, lsmod, lspci and smolt profile respectively):
http://pastebin.com/MW6UPck5
http://pastebin.com/mvPAGMMb
http://pastebin.com/AnNBTSRS
http://pastebin.com/F3FcveR7

Do you have any idea where to look at or what I can do? I am not a
Linux/Fedora expert, but I'm not afraid to debug over serial or that
kind of things if needed... I just need proper guidance.

TIA,
/NH2