<<Did you enable dma in the kernel cheatcode ?
Did you enable the 32bit mode (hdparm -c1d1 /dev/hda) ?>>

I am new to Linux so I have no idea how to do this.

I will also give the bs= option a go to see if this improves things.

I am now using Paragon Disk Copy as it has a Linux CD version.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.