When I try to mount my CD-ROM drive, I get:
mount: /dev/cdrom is not a valid block device

I did some research, but no-one seems to have my same problem. Any sugeestions?

You need to have it in /etc/fstab and have a valid mountpoint directory created

How exactly are you mounting it? Do you actually have a CD in the drive?

Yes, even with a valid mount-point and CD in the drive it won't load.

I checked the linkage to the /dev/cdrom and it returned this:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Oct 4 07:07 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/scd0

My fstab says:

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660

/dev/scd0 is a SCSI CD-ROM.. Is this really the case?

You can refer to a IDE CD as /dev/hdXX too.
E.g. "mount /dev/hdc1 -t auto /mnt/cdrom"

I don't know if it's SCSI, but it's a laptop drive(not very helpful, I know). On the fstab file, there is a /dev/cdrom1 and /dev/cdrom, despite the fact that my laptop only has one drive. One is linked to /dev/scd0 and the other is linked to /dev/hdc, but neither works

You are only half right, strickly. You do need a mount point, but no entry in fstab is needed if you supply the device name and mount point, i.e.

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

however, if you want to say:

mount /mnt/cdrom

then you need the fstab entry.

Try a manual mount, i.e.:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

or

mount /dev/cdrom1 /mnt/cdrom

or even

mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom

(where hdc is your CD-ROM)

My /dev/cdrom is a symbolic link to /dev/hdc:

0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 May 19 22:50 cdrom -> /dev/hdc

You might need to update the link for this to work.

delete the link:
rm /dev/cdrom

recreate the link:
ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom

where hdc is your cdrom (i.e. secondary master)

needless to say, you need to be root for this.

I changed up my fstab a little bit, and I managed to get this:

mount: /dev/cdrom is not a block device (maybe try `-o loop'?)

But other than that, nothing. Unfortunately, I've tried everything here. Thanks for all the advice!

Where is your /dev/cdrom pointing to?

I assume you have some RedHat..

Look in /etc/sysonfig/hardware. Locate the entry that coresponds to your CD drive.

It should be sth like:
class: CDROM
bus: IDE
detached: 0
device: hdc
driver: ignore
desc: "ATAPI CD-RW 52XMax"

Note how it shows the /dev/ entry after "device:". Evidently my CD-ROM (CD-RW actually) is attached to /dev/hdc.

This is a laptop. Keep in mind that Linux doesn't play well with those (we'll see how the new SuSE manages).

All sorts of custom hot pluggable things don't work. For example if your CD-ROM in in a docking device then you have to boot up with the dock attached to make Linux find your drive.

It is /dev/scd0 if you're using kernel 2.4.x or older. They use SCSI emulation for IDE burners. If the emulation layer is configured as a module, you need to load it first: modprobe ide-scsi.

Correct. But don't forget I'm going off long supressed memories of when I actually used UNIX. BeOS doesn't have these problems...

That said, I miss my Indy working...

Modprobe returns a command not found when I use it? I did install the 2.6 kernel, but I still boot to the 2.4 (at least until I get networking working). I get the same error under both kernels (block device, that is).

You have tobe root to use modprobe. In case you haven't put /sbin and /usr/sbin in the root's PATH variable then you have to type it manually e.g. /sbin/modprobe blabla.

I tried modprobing, but I still have the problem. There must be something wierd going on...

insmod should work in 2.4 kernels too.

Did you look in /ets/syconfig/hardware? You will see if Linux has found your CD-ROM at all and where it thinks it is.

I tired to use that location, but hardware doesn't exist puke:

SOmebody must have had this problem. Oh well, I 'll keep trying :knock:

Finally, I found a fix! Stupid me, I deleted /dev/hdc and made it a symlink to /dev/scd0 . I remade the hdc file with MAKEDEV, but now I still can't eject or mount:

Mount says:
wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/cdrom,
or too many mounted file systems
(could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)

Eject says:
eject: unable to eject, last error: Invalid argument

FStab:
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0


I do have hdc=ide-scsi in my grub config...Anybody?

P.S. I think this is why I deleted hdc in the first place...

Depending on your kernel, I don't think you'd need that. 2.4 kernels might work without, 2.6 definitely does. You can mount CDs/DVDs "simply" by mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom.