My laptop is a Thinkpad T400 and the OS is Ubuntu 12.04. I find I have a problem where the CD-RW on my laptop sometimes doesn't read the CD, following some flashing light and sound, after I inserted the CD inside. I press the button to eject the CD, but there is no response. It happens especially when I have some external device using a USB port of the laptop. But sometimes it works as normal. I wonder if there are some Linux commands to force the CD to be read and to be ejected?What might be the  problem? The OS, or the CD Reader?
Commands to read and eject CD?
data cd