Basically, the kernel routinely tries to access the CD to check something. This is progressively wearing down the drive, as there is often nothing to be mounted (drive empty) yet the kernel keeps on trying to spin the drive up.
This problem also existed on previous kernels. Lately, this drive wear has started affecting normal CD operations, because the motor is no longer able to keep a stead pace for long, it starts hickuping. In essence, the kernel's needless continuous drive parsing is killing the hardware! Is there any way to make the kernel stop that routine parsing and instead have it try anything ONLY when a media gets mounted or when the CD-Player tool plays an audio CD, otherwise leave the drive alone? Another problem (much likely related to the same bug) is that if I don't leave any CD (audio or data - same result) in the drive, the kernel eventually reaches the conclusion that the drive cannot be accessed and the only cure is to reboot; neither audio or data CDs can be accesed anymore, I instead get IDE errors. This is on an iMac CRT rev.D 333MHz. -- Martin-�ric Racine, ICT Consultant http://www.pp.fishpool.fi/~q-funk/
