Hi,

I would like to install these three devices and get to work, but it seems that the system is not able to detect these three devices. From desktop, there's a system folder, i can see cdrom in it but when i put a disk and open it, it's blank. Is there anyway I can check if these three devices are detected and how can I install it?
Appreciate if someone can enlighten me.

Many thanks

Hello, your first step is to actually figure out if the kernel sees the devices.
Try doing this in a terminal:

$dmesg > kernelmessages
$nano kernelmessages
and see if you can find anything related to your dvd/cdrom/external harddrive.
If you´re having usb problems then you might want to also look at if coldplug or hotplug are installed on your system.
-
Further are you using kde or gnome or something else?

I'm using KDE and after typing these two commands it says nano command not found.

:~$ dmesg >kernelmessages
:~$ nano kernelmessages
-bash: nano: command not found

When I checked messages with sda as keyword it shows this.

/var/log# more messages | grep sda
Oct 16 05:46:47 abc kernel: sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Oct 16 05:46:47 abc kernel: sda: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0


This is what I've extracted from dmesg. Does that mean my CDRW and DVDRW is detected? I can't seems to find my portable hardisk connected to usb. How can I proceed from here? Oh ya an yes, hotplug is installed.

hda: ST3250823A, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC WD300AB-00BVA0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW TS-H552U, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: CD-RW 48X16, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 488397168 sectors (250059 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=30401/255/63, UDMA(100)
hdb: attached ide-disk driver.
hdb: host protected area => 1
hdb: 58633344 sectors (30020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=3649/255/63, UDMA(100)
hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdc: ATAPI 48X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdd: ATAPI 48X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 >
hdb: hdb1 hdb2

Have you tried the add hardware in YAST to scan for the hardisk. And sometimes if you have an older computer, the USB is sometimes not detected when you download Linux.

My portable hardisk is not detectable now even on windows xp system since I've plugged it in and out physically while on linux. I have no idea what causes that, probably that had corrupted the hardisk. Guess I'll have to send it in for RMA

Ok, as for my dvdrom, it's detectable now since I typed mount /dev/cdrom, guess it was detected earlier but not mounted

However I'd like to unmount and mount it to be /dev/dvdrom instead. Can anyone advise how can I unmount and mount it into dvd instead? I've tried with several parameter but can't get it to work.

Thanks alot