CDrom mounts but doesn't do anything else
 

Hi,

I'm on Mandrake 10.1 - installed from CDrom. Everything working fine except one problem - it doesn't recognise any files from the CDrom drive. I've tried various CDs including the orignal ones I installed Mandrake from, and checked them in my windows partition (using the same drive) - but Linux doesn't see any files. The device appears to be mounted - if I right-click on the CD-ROM button and select Eject, it ejects the drive ok.

I'm a Linux Very-Newbie and I don't know how to diagnose this particular problem. I've been up and down the internet but not found anything.

I've tried booting from the CDroms. This works up to the point the Linux kernal is booted, then it says it can't find any files on the Cdrom. Argh!

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions that I could try?

Check your /mnt/ directory after you insert a cd. CD is probably mounted and you need to look in the right folder to access the files. Look for something like /mnt/cdrom and everything on the cd should be available in there.

'fraid not. Even through Konsole I get no files returned afer a
cd /mnt/cdrom
ls

The fact that I can cd to it must mean that it's recognising the device... just not that it has files on it!

post output from ls -l /dev/hdc and ls -l /mnt/cdrom or where the cdrom is mounted.

$ ls -l /dev/hdc
brw-rw---- 1 dan disk 22, 0 May 20 19:27 /dev/hdc
$ ls -l /mnt/cdrom
total 0
$

post output from cat /etc/fstab if your in the disk group or your dan you should be able to see the files.

$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hdb1 / ext2 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdc,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/removable auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,kudzu,codepage=850,noauto,exec,users 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/win_e vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda7 /mnt/win_f vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda8 /mnt/win_g vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda9 /mnt/win_h vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda10 /mnt/win_i vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda11 swap swap defaults 0 0

hmm.. sould mount automatically when you instert the cd..

Have you tried running in the term (Konsole)
I knowit sounds stupid, but it might help.. try it both as your user, and as root.

Thanks for the help, but I think the best thing to do as it's a reasonably fresh install, is to trash it and rebuild. I've probably done something really dumb - I just don't know what!

Cheers!

EDIT: Okay....

from your fstab, it looks like it's using some sort of automounting tool called "supermount". I try to stay away from automounting as it tends to stuff up a lot and interfere with normal u/mounting. if you don't care about automounting, you could do the following, which should definately work, unless your kernel doesn't support the filesystem on the cd, in which case it will tell you when you try to mount.

change the third line of /etc/fstab to and then you can mount at the console with and umount with also, in case you didnt know, just doing "mount" at the command line will tell you all the filesystems you have mounted, just so you don't accidentally eject something that is still mounted and corrupt the filesystem or the ejected media (I have done both before :)).

Ok, more info...

I've trashed my Mandrake install to start from scratch. Began to install and got the same issue - begins to install from the CD-rom, checks all the devices, comes to check the CD-rom and decides that it doesn't like it. Doing an alt-f4 to see the kernel messages I get:

<6>cdrom: hdc: mmc-3 profile capable, current profile: 9h
<4>Unable to identify CD-ROM format.

Ah! I thought - must be the CD. Before I burned a new one I thought I'd check it the missus's PC - absolutely no problems at all.

So - could this be the drive that's the problem? Even though it works fine in Windows? Or could LILO be giving wrong CD-Rom information out (as LILO is still on the boot sector of my Windows disk)?

Perplexed! :confused:

(I should point out that this is the same drive and cd that I installed Mandrake succesfully last time)

it would not be the cd drive unless its REALLY old or an exotic brand. yep, it definately looks like it's the filesystem used on the disk that's the problem (or it's scratched or dirty - but I'm hoping that you tried cleaning it and checking for scratches before posting here). i've had similar problems with disks burned with nero and other windows apps. maybe it's got joliet extensions? I don't know much about this but a google search should turn something up.

EDIT: wait - it worked last time? unfortunately, my diagnosis is that your drive is dying (or scratched/dirty cd).

EDIT 2: WAIT - if you downloaded mandrake, possibly the ISO is faulty - did you check the md5sum?

generally if the data is corrupt (which you find by checking the md5) it wouldn't have worked the first time.

But stranger things have happened. It really does sound like a hardware problem, even more that the same cd's work in your wife's computer.

It really wouldn't be Lilo giving the error, it's the /etc/fstab, and that could be corrupt on your install disc.

You don't happen to have a live cd laying around do ya? You might try that and check what it says in your fstab.

Automounting is nice, but does tend to mess things up for you.

How old is your cd-rom drive?