[LAU] Slightly off topic question.

This is not really linux-audio related strictly, but maybe someone on this list has an idea. I have an ubuntu feisty system, and I'm trying to get CDROM ripping to work. I used to be able to rip my own CDs using my DVD writer, but something has stopped working, and I can't diagnose it. The failure mode is that the audio is read, but the reading is really slow. The reader, cdparanoia, tells me that there is a lot of "Unreported loss of streaming in atomic read operation" errors, which it donotes with this emoticon: :-P The output is very noisy, with a lot of transient pops and clicks. By "a lot" I mean an average of 3-4 a second. It's really annoying. The DVD reader reads CDs to play them, but it can't seem to read them to rip them, which seems completely counterintuitive to me. I don't have the cd audio cable connected, so I know the CDs are being read using the DVD reader, and not being read through the cd audio cable. The DVD Writer is an ATAPI writer, attached to the IDE1 slot. There is no other device on this IDE interface, and the DVD Writer is set to be an IDE master. So, the system sees it as /dev/hdc. I have an ubuntu feisty system, with a 2.6.20-16 32-bit kernel and an AMD 32 bit processor, not that that it really matters. Does anyone have (1) any clue as to why this fails, or (2) any clues as to how to diagnose the problem? Thanks.