setting drive speed: bad/missing CDROM/DVD-speed value (0..255)

My DVD drive is disturbingly noisy. Setting its speed to 4x is sufficient to watch movies, yet quiet.

With 3.2.0.41.49 it worked as expected.
With 3.2.0.43.51 (after upgrade) results are as follows:

  [just as with old kernel]
  root@computer:~# hdparm -E4 /dev/sr0
  /dev/sr0:
  setting cd/dvd speed to 4
 [but now the drive is not slowing down; querying drive speed to check back yields the following: ]
  root@computer:~# hdparm -E /dev/sr0
    -E: bad/missing CDROM/DVD-speed value (0..255)

dmesg doesn't report anything on the issue.

I have unattended-updates running and according to the logs, 3.2.0.41.49 has been the last automatically installed version. I had to jolt upgrade to 3.2.0.43.51 by hand (apt-get install linux-generic linux-image linux-foo).

The bug is similiar to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hdparm/+bug/538351 in regard to what does not work, but different in symptoms on screen (and the other bug is three years old, different kernel and hdparm version today).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: hdparm 9.37-0ubuntu3.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-43.68-generic 3.2.42
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-43-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon May 20 01:06:13 2013
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: hdparm
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-03 (381 days ago)