Occasionally the following error is reported on Athens (98.2) when using cdrdao to write a CD:

Starting write ERROR: No mode page data received ERROR: Cannot retrieve drive capabilities mode page. at speed 0... Pausing 10 seconds - hit CTRL-C to abort. Process can be aborted with QUIT signal (usually CTRL-\). ERROR: No mode page data received. ERROR: Cannot retrieve write parameters mode page. ERROR: Cannot setup write parameters for session-at-once mode. ERROR: Please try to use the 'generic-mmc-raw' driver. ERROR: Writing failed.

A simple solution is to remove the ide-cd module and try again:

  $ sudo rmmod ide-cd