cdrecord blank causes system block

[David Gardi <debian@gardisoft.org>]

Hi people,
I own a Philips CDRW 16x10x40. Things seem to be working normally (more 
or less) apart from one strange problem.

When I do Ex. cdrecord blank=all
The blanking process starts, and completes ok, but during the blanking 
process, the system
freezes. I can't open an xterm, cannot perform another login, terminate 
a running process.

When the blank completes, then all resumes as normal. This does not 
happen when I'm writing to a cd, just blank.

I'm using cdrecord 1.10-2.3, -scanbus seems to be reporting correctly.

Any ideas would be nice.
David.