gparted extreamely slow in Kubuntu Gutsy beta amd64 and crashes

Gparted in Kubuntu Gutsy beta amd64 is extremely slow. Taskbar shows scanning available drives. Randomly crashes. Found the following in /var/log/messages

Oct 3 11:17:25 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5957.645642] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:17:37 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5963.730143] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:17:49 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5969.814775] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:18:02 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5975.897196] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:18:14 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5981.979514] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:18:26 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5988.067558] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:18:38 x2-3800 kernel: [ 5994.178118] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:18:50 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6000.276647] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:19:03 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6006.988844] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:19:15 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6013.077233] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:19:27 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6019.159956] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:19:39 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6025.242162] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:19:51 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6031.328577] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:20:04 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6037.445055] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:20:16 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6043.545702] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:20:28 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6049.635817] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:20:40 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6055.720406] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:20:52 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6061.802576] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:21:04 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6067.882962] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:21:17 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6073.961511] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:21:29 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6080.083683] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:21:41 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6086.188271] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:21:53 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6092.278732] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:22:06 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6098.367170] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:22:18 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6104.449470] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:23:03 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6127.125203] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:23:15 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6133.221627] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:23:28 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6139.308330] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:23:40 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6145.392635] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:23:52 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6151.474790] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:24:04 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6157.555196] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:24:16 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6163.645814] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:24:29 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6169.764148] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:24:41 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6175.862739] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:24:53 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6181.952804] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:25:05 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6188.041330] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:25:17 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6194.125920] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:25:29 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6201.061525] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:25:42 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6208.639971] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:25:54 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6214.764224] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:26:06 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6220.866869] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:26:18 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6226.957199] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:26:31 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6233.041391] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:26:43 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6239.123890] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:26:55 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6245.204515] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:27:07 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6251.282672] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:27:19 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6258.021111] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:27:32 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6264.123654] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:27:44 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6270.218053] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Oct 3 11:27:56 x2-3800 kernel: [ 6276.302397] end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0

No floppy was inserted in drive or mounted.

I have previously used gparted in kde in both dapper and edgy with no problems as I found qtparted a bit unstable at the time.