CD-ROM read fails. Recovery is impossible.

[Carl Fink <carl@fink.to>]

CD-ROM media is second only to diskettes as being prone to errors.  I
seemingly have a bad CD in my IDE CD drive.  I have these entries in my log:

    Aug 10 09:45:56 nitpicking kernel: hdc: timeout waiting for DMA
    Aug 10 09:45:56 nitpicking kernel: ide_dmaproc: chipset supported ide_dma_timeout func only: 14
    Aug 10 09:45:56 nitpicking kernel: hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:45:56 nitpicking kernel: hdc: drive not ready for command
    Aug 10 09:45:56 nitpicking kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset complete
    Aug 10 09:46:06 nitpicking kernel: hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:06 nitpicking kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset complete
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 16:00 (hdc), sector 1415756
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: hdc: DMA disabled
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: hdc: drive not ready for command
    Aug 10 09:46:21 nitpicking kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset complete
    Aug 10 09:46:31 nitpicking kernel: hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:31 nitpicking kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset complete
    Aug 10 09:46:46 nitpicking kernel: hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:46 nitpicking kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 16:00 (hdc), sector 1415760
    Aug 10 09:46:46 nitpicking kernel: hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
    Aug 10 09:46:46 nitpicking kernel: hdc: drive not ready for command
    Aug 10 09:46:47 nitpicking kernel: hdc: ATAPI reset complete
    Aug 10 09:46:57 nitpicking kernel: hdc: irq timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }

Or maybe it's a bad drive, or a loose cable.  I don't know.

What I do know is this:  I got the above at 9:45 am Eastern time (along
with many repetitions of the messages shown).  It is now 14:25 Eastern,
and not only can't I read from the drive, I can't unmount the CD.  And my
system load is running around 2.5 instead of the usual sub-1.

Surely the driver should eventually time out?  

I know what process was trying to read from the disk:  avidemux.  I've
used kill -9 on the process, but it won't exit.  I can't modprobe -r the
"cdrom" module from my Debian kernel-image-2.4.20-3-k7, because it's
"busy".  Again, surely the process should time out at some point and let
me remove the module?

I assume I'm eventually going to have to reboot to get the drive door
open.

Advice:  should I report this as a kernel bug.  ("Wishlist:  cd-rom device
driver should time out and return control to the user when DMA fails.")
Would it be a bug in the IDE driver, or the CD driver?

I appreciate any help.
--      
Carl Fink             carl@fink.to
Jabootu's Minister of Proofreading
http://www.jabootu.com