[lug] DVD drive hanging system

[Jed S. Baer]

Hi Folks.

Trying to figure out how to fix this - new drive?

If a DVD is particularly scratched up, my DVD drive will hang my system.
Some things will still work, such as a text login on an alternate
console, but even a shutdown gets only so far, and then hangs.

The DVD is ??? years old - nah, I don't know. It shares the SATA
controller with /dev/sdc, i.e. it's /dev/sdd, so any operations
using /dev/sdc will also hang. Swap is on /dev/sdc2 and /home is
on /dev/sdc3, so it's pretty nasty when this happens.

The eject command doesn't eject, and the front panel eject button doesn't
work either. I've tried the pinhole "(*&%#)^&# eject" method, but it
really doesn't feel as if there's a button there.

Only way out of this is to power off. I've tried letting it sit for 10
minutes, but it won't time out.

Some of these DVDs will play on the Blu-Ray player fine, others are
clearly hosed.

So, what's the deal? If I can't interrupt the DVD drive, does it mean the
drive is bad? Most DVDs play just fine.

Is there magic incantation for 'really really really abort whatever's
happening with /dev/sr0 right now yes I do mean that'?