FC3 can no longer successfully burn CDs

For me, and a few of my friends, FC3 has two different kinds of
problems regarding CDs:

1/ it no longer burns CDs correctly.  ie. they are un-usable.
2/ you can't use dd or md5sum to accurately read or check CDs.

I used the following commands to erase/record (as Xcdroast invoked them)...

cdrecord dev= /dev/cdrom gracetime=2 -v -eject speed=4 blank=fast

cdrecord dev= /dev/cdrom gracetime=2 fs=4096k driveropts=burnfree -v
-useinfo speed=4 -dao -eject -pad -data /root/KNOPPIX_V3.7-2004-12-08-EN.iso

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Here is a summary of my investigations:

- I boot with the older kernel (2.6.9-1.677) and I can burn a CD
 and read it with dd and I get the correct MD5
- Burning with the later kernel, and the CD's are bad.
- 2.6.8.-1.681_FC3 causes problems

                       read with (exact sector count)

                      2.6.9-1.677     2.6.8.-1.681_FC3
burned with             ===========     ================
===========
2.6.9-1.677                 OK               OK
2.6.8.-1.681_FC3            bad              bad

using a 2.6.9-1.677 burn...
                         read with (no sector count)

                      2.6.9-1.677     2.6.8.-1.681_FC3
                      ===========     ================
sectors read:              326441           326441

It should have read 326426 2Kbyte sectors)

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Does anyone care to comment?