I'm running Linux Mandrake 10 and have recently changed chassi for my computer. Since the IDE-cable didn't reach both the HD and the CD-rom i had to set the cd-rom to IDE-channel 2. Now when i start up linux the system hangs while "checking for new hardware". Is there a way to tell linux that i've changed the location of my cd-rom without reinstalling linux? (If I disconnect the cd-rom the system starts up without problems).

Before having the trouble:

IDE 1 Master: HD
IDE 1 Slave: CD-rom
IDE 2 Master: empty
IDE 2 Slave: empty

Current setup:

IDE 1 Master: HD
IDE 1 Slave: empty
IDE 2 Master: CD-rom
IDE 2 Slave: empty

(I have changed the "pins" on the cd-rom to master)

You should reflect the changes you've made in your fstab file (located at /etc/fstab)

Open a terminal, become root ($su and then enter password) then open fstab with the text editor of your choice (e.g. #emacs /etc/fstab)

Now check the line that contains the reference to your cd-rom.
Mine looks like this:
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom auto pamconsole,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

Now reflect the change you made:

IDE 1 Master: hda
IDE 1 Slave: hdb
IDE 2 Master: hdc
IDE 2 Slave: hdd

If fstab says something like /dev/cdrom the sollution is different:

As root (so in a terminal after you did 'su') do the following:

#ls -l /dev/ | grep cdrom

this will tell you to which device your cdrom is linked.

since your cdrom used to be at /devhdb it should say something like:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Oct 13 11:49 cdrom -> hdb

Then remove the link:
#rm -f /dev/cdrom

and create a new one:
#ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom

Everything should now work fine.

I can't boot the system with CD-rom connected. If I unplug the CD-rom and boot the system neither dev/hdb, dev/hdc or dev/hdd exist. Likevise dev/cdrom does not exist and nothing is to be find in fstab conserining the cdrom.

So how to proceed?