[ILUG] Do not ever do what I've just done, and can someone help me undo it?

[Ronan Cunniffe]

Hi all,
        I've just managed to wedge my RH7.1 box *solid*.  Not even Ye-Olde 
three fingered salute broke it out.  How did I achieve this?

#cdrecord -speed=4 -dev=0,0 image.iso &
                                     ^^^ Don't ever do this!

I typed the above via ssh, did a few other minor things that needed to be done, 
then logged out.  An hour later, the 'write' light was still blinking away....
Logged in, found cdrecord was not running (I now suspect it died as soon as I 
logged out) so I tried eject, which didn't work, which didn't surprise.

I twiddled my thumbs for a while, read the hdparm manpage (slightly worried 
about reprogramming the IDE chips while the level above it thinks it's a SCSI 
device.  Anybody?)

Anyway, I finally decided to commit the crime of fixing a software problem by 
rebooting the box.  All services went down, keyboard went non-responsive, and 
the box just sat there with the CD-RW light blinking.  Oh, and all the drives 
still mounted.

No choice from here but to blip the reset switch and spent the next hour 
picking bits of ext2 (yes, yes, I know, don't start!) out of my teeth.

So, having burdened you with tedious narrative, the real question is:
   How do you unconditionally reset an ATAPI device (or a SCSI or an IDE one 
for that matter)?

Thanks (and hope this saves some other poor sod)
Ronan