okay I run make menuconfig and it said up top that my kernel was 2.4.26 which means that I must have never installed the 2.6.9 I thought I installed? anyway I found the /dev and the auto stuff and ran the rest of your walkthrough without hitch... I rebooted and put a dvd in the drive. I typed mount /mnt/dvd

bash-2.05b# mount /mnt/dvd
mount: special device /dev/dvd does not exist

so I tried this:

bash-2.05b# mount /dev/hdb
mount: can't find /dev/hdb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
bash-2.05b# mount /dev/hdc
mount: can't find /dev/hdc in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
bash-2.05b# mount /dev/hdd
mount: can't find /dev/hdd in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

still no effect, so I don't know what to do now

It seems that this dvd issue is spreading wider and wider.. ive lost mine since I installed XP serpac 2 with Media Player 10.
I spent two and a half months just getting my system stable again. Not running Media player ten!!! With the bevy of tools out there I have found that i can "see" fresh media but cant read or write to dvd. Im pretty sure my problem is a file system issue along with the fact that some of my clisid's are not reporting or allowing. Im almost there...

**** You need to specify a mount point!!!!!!!! *****

Instead of "mount /dev/hdb" use "mount /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom" or some other directory you'd like to mount it to.

By the way, the mount point itself doesn't really matter... you could use /mnt/cdrom for everything regardless of what drive you're mounting. ("mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/cdrom" mounts your floppy drive to /mnt/cdrom)

So... see if that helps. Also, you might want to post the results of "ls /dev/hd*" for a list of your hd devices, as well as "dmesg | grep hd" for a list of kernel messages containing "hd". That way we can see if anything has changed, even if it won't mount.

tried to mount:
bash-2.05b# mount /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom
mount: special device /dev/hdb does not exist

output for ls/dev/hd*

bash-2.05b# ls /dev/hd*
/dev/hda /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda5 /dev/hda6 /dev/hdc

output for dmesg
bash-2.05b# dmesg | grep hd
hda: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1, ATA DISK drive
hdc: LTN301, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63
hda: cache flushes not supported
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 >
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 120kB Cache
Adding 1048312k swap on /dev/hda5. Priority:-1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda6, internal journal
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda2.
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda2.
bash-2.05b#

any ideas why it says bash-2.05b? I know that bash = bourne again shell but why does it say that and not my user name and folder?

anyway, there that is

Well, about the bash thing, some terminals (like xterm) don't execute /etc/profile automatically when they run bash. If you really want the username and everything, type ". /etc/profile" at the prompt.

Hmmmmm... well, I'm not sure what to make of that... The only thing to do now is to start eliminating possiblities (i.e. what CAN'T be the problem).

I would try moving the cables around so that your dvd drive is on the second ide bus. That way, if everything still doesn't work, we've established that it's the drives themselves that are the problem and not the ide bus... I'm still suspicious that linux might not be detecting the drives on your third ide bus - or there might even be physical problems with that slot, and the only way to be sure is to move things around a bit.

You technically don't need to have anything on the third ide bus, anyway, if you only have four ide drives. You can slave the cdrom to your hard disk and then move the dvd & cdrw cable to the second ide slot (after removing the old cable from that slot, of course =P). But, for now, I'd just try disconnecting the cdrom altogether and moving the dvd & cdrw to where the cdrom used to be plugged in.

Let me know how that turns out. (mounting results, dmesg, ls... the usual. =)

okay... one thing I lied about the configuration.... I have one device per ide so the dvd, cd, burner and hdd are all on seperate ide drives to make them faster.....

however... I switched the cd with the dvd... it mounted just fine... In fact it is playing the Packers DVD I have just great... the video is good looking, the sound is great...

bash-2.05b# dmesg |grep hd
hda: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1, ATA DISK drive
hdc: SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616Q, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63
hda: cache flushes not supported
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 >
hdc: ATAPI 48X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache
Adding 1048312k swap on /dev/hda5. Priority:-1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda6, internal journal
bash-2.05b#


as root I tried this
bash-2.05b# ./etc/profile
bash: ./etc/profile: No such file or directory
bash-2.05b# cd /etc
bash-2.05b# profile
bash: profile: command not found
bash-2.05b#
I don't know what that means

Good job with the DVD thing. I suggest you put the rest of your drives on the first two IDE buses so that you can use them all. Make sure the jumper settings on your drives are set properly if you do that, though.

I should have been clearer about the /etc/profile thing. There has to be a space between the "." and "/etc/profile". The "." itself is a bash command which executes the following file within the same shell.... so running ". /etc/profile" will run all the commands contained therein as if you typed them yourself.

By the way, under slackware, the current directory isn't in root's path... that's why when you typed "profile" it said "command not found". The file is there, it just wasn't seeing it. If you had typed "./profile" (no space after the dot) it would have said something like "permission denied" because the file doesn't have execute permissions.

Just run ". /etc/profile" (with a space after the dot) and you'll be fine.

okay I did that and it worked fine... there isn't a way to make it stay is there?

as for the drives? does linux not support multiple ide? cause I really don't want to put all the drives on the same 2 ide? this is gona slow my system down, and the hdd is located in the bottom of my case the and the drives are located up on the top... so that would kinda be annoying having to switch that all around... plus I would waste to perfectly (almost) good ide busses

I have the same problem with Slack 9.1(2.4.22)
I have 2 hd's(hda, hdb)
BIOS recognizes the CD-R

me@darkstar:~$ dmesg | grep hd
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=Linux2.4.22 ro root=343 hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off
ide_setup: hdd=ide-scsi
hda: WDC WD102AA, ATA DISK drive
hdb: HDS722540VLAT20, ATA DISK drive
hdc: CD-540E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 20044080 sectors (10263 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=1247/255/63
hdb: attached ide-disk driver.
hdb: host protected area => 1
hdb: 80418240 sectors (41174 MB) w/1794KiB Cache, CHS=5005/255/63
hdc: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdc: ATAPI 40X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 hdb2 hdb3 hdb4

however, SCSI is built in the kernel, but

root@darkstar:/home/me# locate ide-scsi.o
warning: locate: warning: database /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db' is more than 8 days old

furthermore there is no Pseudo FIlesystems inmake menuconfig in 2.4.22. The closest thing is /dev/pts or /proc
Here is what I get from make menuconfig:

Quotas
Kernel Automounter
Kernel Automounter V4
Reiserfs
Enable Reiserfs debug
Stats in /proc/fs/..
Ext3
JBD
Dos FAT
MSDOS
USMSDOS
VFAT
Compressed ROM
Virtual Memory
ISO 9660
MS Joliet
Transparent decompression
JFS
Minix
Free Vxfs
NTFS
OS/2 HPFS
/proc fs (selected)
/dev/pts(selected)
QNX4
ROM
second external fs
SYSV/Xenix
UDF
UFS
Network FS
Partition Types
Language Support

Any tips?

k_bob:
--------
If you REALLY want to use xterm with your profile, you could write a short shell script to do the work for you... like:

Then save it, chmod it, etc. You'll probably want to move it to /usr/bin so that it'll be in your path.

Linux supports more than two ide buses (hde,hdf=third bus, etc), but I have no idea how to set that up since my computer only has two. I highly recommend looking for documentation online about linux and ide devices on the third and fourth ide buses.

svar:
------

Devfs is supported by kernel 2.4, so don't worry about Pseudo Filesystems... that's a 2.6 thing.

If you want to get rid of that "8 day" locate warning, run updatedb.

You never said what your problem was... and everything seems to have been setup correctly. If you can't find hdd, that's because you have the "hdd=ide-scsi" option and hdd has moved to /dev/sr0 or something similar. I'm not quite sure what it's called, but it's bound to be documented somewhere. The name changes because "hdd=ide-scsi" enables a scsi emulation layer which turns your /dev/hdd into a scsi device... and scsi devices have a whole different naming scheme.

Thanks zhangmaike,
the problem is that BIOS sees the CD-R, which is
indeed /dev/sr0

(at least that's what I use in fstab), but I cannot use it for burning.

Instead of hdd=ide-scsi, should I say sr0=ide-scsi
in lilo?

hey do I make a new file using vi? and what do I save it as? sorry, being newbish again....

If you are in fact a newb, it might be better for you to try 'pico' instead of vi.

To create a new file in pico, simply type pico <filename>
File functions are listed on the bottom of the screen (Ctrl+O to write, Ctrl-X to quit)

okay... sorry about the maverickmage post... I am at work and my co-worker uses this computer and I didn't check to see who was logged on...

I know how to use vi cause one of my other friends showed me how to use it, the problem is I don't know where to put this so that it executes when the shell is opened....

hey zhangmaike, do I need to enable ide-scsi emulation? I don't think I have that set as a current boot parameter..... I was reading some other threads about... enabling that to get multiple ide drives to work from what I can tell I have this to my lilo config?
append="hdd=ide-scsi"

is that right?