Failing CDR or User Error?

[Kurt Wall <kwall@kurtwerks.com>]

After fighting with the 2.6 kernel and CD burning, I've concluded that my
CDR is heading south because I can no longer burn CDs even from a 2.4
kernel.

>From dmesg, I see that the drive is properly detected (Linux kernel 2.4.28,
locally compiled):

hdd: attached ide-scsi driver.
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
  Vendor: OPTORITE  Model: CD-RW CW4802      Rev: 120E
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 4x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray

cdrecord sees the drive the way it always has:

# cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg
Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.25
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'OPTORITE' 'CD-RW CW4802    ' '120E' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *

So far, so good. I can read CDs with the drive, too, and don't seem to
get any errors if I copy files in bulk from a CD-ROM in the drive. If I 
try to query the drive capabilities, though, things go bad quickly:

# cdrecord dev=0,0,0 -inq -debug=1
dev: '0,0,0' speed: -1 fs: -1 driveropts '(NULL POINTER)'
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg
Schilling
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
scg__open() 0,0,0
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.25
l1: 0x0 l2: 0x0
Bus: 0 Target: 0 Lun: 0 Chan: 0 Ino: 0
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
Target (0,0,0): DMA max 129024 old max: 64512
SCSI buffer size: 64512
Target (0,0,0): DMA max 129024 old max: 64512
scgo_getbuf: 64512 bytes
atapi: 1
ioctl ret: 0
host_status: 07 driver_status: 27
ioctl ret: 0
host_status: 07 driver_status: 27
cdrecord: Cannot do inquiry for CD/DVD-Recorder.
ioctl ret: 0
host_status: 07 driver_status: 27
cdrecord: Input/output error. test unit ready: scsi sendcmd: cmd timeout
after 10.138 (40) s
CDB:  00 00 00 00 00 00
cmd finished after 10.138s timeout 40s

During the query, my system freezes solid. Further attempts to interact
with the drive fail miserably and freeze the system. I'm open to suggestions 
before I run out and get a replacement. I get the same results with the 
latest alpha (2.01.01 as of a few days ago) of cdrecord. Is my drive going
bad? 

Thanks,

Kurt
-- 
"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"