benpope, darthtux,
i tried hdparm again...

# /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hdc
/dev/hdc: No such device or address

try mounting a data cd, like the installation disks. if that doesn't work check dmesg to see what it says about your drive during boot and post that up here. sounds like you were right the first time and it's not supported

mcd, data cd didn't mount either. i tried /bin/dmesg but got nothing interesting.

here is a snipping from my /var/log/messages.3 file....sorry if it's not the right log file

Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi

Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddMA
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: SiI3112 Serial ATA: IDE controller at PCI slot 01:0b.0
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: SiI3112 Serial ATA: chipset revision 2
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: SiI3112 Serial ATA: not 100%% native mode: will probe irqs later
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: ide2: MMIO-DMA at 0xf880d000-0xf880d007, BIOS settings: hdeio, hdfio
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: ide3: MMIO-DMA at 0xf880d008-0xf880d00f, BIOS settings: hdgio, hdhio
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: hda: Maxtor 6Y120L0, ATA DISK drive
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: hdb: IC35L180AVV207-1, ATA DISK drive
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: blk: queue c03be900, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
Aug 11 18:25:17 fractus kernel: blk: queue c03bea44, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hdc: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-248F, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hde: no response (status = 0xfe)
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hdg: no response (status = 0xfe)
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hda: host protected area => 1
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hda: 240121728 sectors (122942 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=14946/255/63, UDMA(33)
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hdb: host protected area => 1
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hdb: 361882080 sectors (185284 MB) w/7965KiB Cache, CHS=22526/255/63, UDMA(33)
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: Partition check:
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: hdb: hdb1
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: md: autorun ...
Aug 11 18:25:18 fractus kernel: md: ... autorun DONE.

THANKS for everyone's input so far

You didn't tell us it was a CDRW DVD drive. SCSI emulation is loading so see if you have a /dev/scd0 or /dev/sr0 device. Then again it might not unless you have the correct modules loading.

Also tell us what modules are being loaded
/sbin/lsmod

Also are you using grub?

sorry everyone for the omission of detail, but i'm wondering how my drive being a CDRW (no DVD -- not sure why that ATAPI info appears in the log) affects its definition and usability as a regular cdrom device? it's still being defined as the ide disk "hdc".....

does the fact that it's a CDRW mean that i need to define it as a scsi device in fstab ?

THANKS for all the help and patience

michaelk, here is the list of modules....

Module Size Used by Not tainted
vfat 12844 0 (autoclean)
fat 38328 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
ide-cd 35196 0 (autoclean)
cdrom 33472 0 (autoclean) [ide-cd]
parport_pc 18756 1 (autoclean)
lp 8868 0 (autoclean)
parport 36480 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
nfs 79960 13 (autoclean)
udf 97504 0 (autoclean)
nfsd 79024 8 (autoclean)
lockd 57680 1 (autoclean) [nfs nfsd]
sunrpc 80412 1 (autoclean) [nfs nfsd lockd]
i810_audio 27528 1 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 13544 0 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
soundcore 6276 2 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
autofs 12948 0 (autoclean) (unused)
3c59x 30416 1
ipt_REJECT 3896 6 (autoclean)
iptable_filter 2380 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 14648 2 [ipt_REJECT iptable_filter]
keybdev 2880 0 (unused)
mousedev 5428 1
hid 21700 0 (unused)
input 5792 0 [keybdev mousedev hid]
ehci-hcd 19592 0 (unused)
usb-ohci 21160 0 (unused)
usbcore 77696 1 [hid ehci-hcd usb-ohci]
ext3 69984 1
jbd 51220 1 [ext3]


and i am using grub, yes

THANKS

Do you have any /dev/scd0 or /dev/sr0 devices?

If so then change your fstab.

Just wondering if you have a append = "hdc=ide-scsi" line in your grub config

I'm not a SCSI emulation expert since I only use SCSI devices.

Just for fun if you have cdrecord app installed what is the output of:

cdrecord --scanbus

michaelk, yes i have a scd0 device, but no sr0 device in /dev/ .

my fstab cd line reads thus now...

/dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,user,kudzu,ro 0 0

but when i try to mount /mnt/cdrom with a linux data disk in there i get the same ol'
mount: /dev/scd0 is not a valid block device

i'm not sure how to check my grub config to see if i have a append = "hdc=ide-scsi" line there.....


here is the cdrecord output you asked for....
# cdrecord --scanbus
Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 J?rg Schilling
cdrecord: No such file or directory. Cannot open '/dev/pg*'. Cannot open SCSI driver.
cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make sure you are root.
cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.


THANKS

Try
modprobe ide-scsi
modprobe scsi_mod

cdrecord --scanbus

I don't know where RH sticks the grub.conf file. Try /boot.

michaelk...thanks for the recent help. here is the output from the list of scripts you suggested running...

# /sbin/modprobe ide-scsi
# /sbin/modprobe ide-scsi
# /sbin/modprobe scsi_mod
# cdrecord --scanbus
Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 J?rg Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.24
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial libscg transport code version (schily - Red Hat-scsi-linux-sg.c-1.75-RH '@(#)scsi-linux-sg.c 1.75 02/10/21 Copyright 1997 J. Schilling').
scsibus0:
0,0,0 0) 'SAMSUNG ' 'CD-R/RW SW-248F ' 'R601' Removable CD-ROM
0,1,0 1) *
0,2,0 2) *
0,3,0 3) *
0,4,0 4) *
0,5,0 5) *
0,6,0 6) *
0,7,0 7) *

i can now mount a data disk, and burn cd's, and i can even play music cd's !!

THANKS HEAPS everyone for all your help and michaelk espec for his recent assistance.

but i'm curious as to what the problem was...apparently ide CDRW act as scsi devices? what is it about CDRW's that they require this definition?

http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/...E/README.ATAPI

http://wt.xpilot.org/publications/ou...Writing-2.html