Ok,
It took me quite a long time but thanks to the Internet and the post by indexofire I was able to find a reliable solution:
I think this will be of interest to all persons wishing to deploy an Alix box with an IDE drive.
1. The IDE drive was identified as da0 on the install machine and considered as ad0 for Alix…
==> Edit and modify the /etc/fstab to change da0 to ad0 (this one was easy)!
2. The "READ_DMA UDMA" problem… this one is much more tricky:
==> Install pfSense with the live CD on an IDE drive.
==> Boot or mount your newly formated HD with the computer you have used for the install
==> Mount your partition: mount -o rw /dev/da0s1a /root/tmp
==> Create a file in /etc: /etc/rc.early and insert
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/atacontrol mode ad0 UDMA2"
==> Edit boot file: /boot/loader.conf and add this line:
hw.ata.ata_dma = 0
==> Reboot !
And now everything is up and running!!
Thanks to indexofire on this thread, http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=4486
…You will soon be able to buy Alix box with IDE drive on my site www.osnet.eu