Hii,
I am new user and first time i tried to install linux(fedora 6) in my PC. While installing Fedora 6, it showed "Unable to mount CDROM".
I am looking for help.

Thanks in advance

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Fedora and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

of computer are you installing on? Is the cdrom sata? I would first make sure the cables are good, next I would reburn the fedora iso(at a very slow rate), and as a last case I would switch out the cdrom...sometimes they just do not like certain cd's.... As a test, I would try a different linux distro, maybe a live cd, to se eif its fedora, your cd, or your cdrom.

Hi,
My PC configuration is:
1. SMASUNG DVD-R/RW (TSST corp CD/DVDW SH-W162Z)(non-sata)
2. Non SATA Hard disk.(ST3160212A)
3. Core 2 duo (E6600), 2.4 GHz
4. 1 GB of DDR1 RAM
5. Intel G965 Express Chipset family

Since my hard disk is Non-SATA, one bus cable connect both Hard disk and DVD-R/RW.

I have removed the hard-disk from my system for a while just to check the behavior of the Fedora 6, I ended up with the same result. It showing "Unable to mount CDROM".
The cable are good and i tried using the live CD also but same result.
is this a problem with my DVD-r/rw.

has a sata dvd burner by the same company, it has problems with older (Ubuntu 6.06, Fedora 5) distro's seeing it. The newer distros, Fedora 7, Ubuntu 7.04, Debian Etch, all see it just fine. Another option is to try a cd instead of Dvd based install disk to see if its just the dvd driver it does not like, it may still be able to us eit as a cd reader. If not, I would recomend a new dvd. Even very cheep dvd reader ($30 U.S.) is more then enough to install with...

Since you are using the same IDE cable for both your hard drive (hdd) and dvdrw (which is not the preferred way of doing it), then make sure you have the jumpers set correctly on both drives which should be cable select. My recommendation is use an IDE cable solely for your hdd and another for your dvdrw. Otherwise you're splitting the limited bandwidth of those ATA-100 drives. Also make sure you are plugging the IDE cable from your hdd into the PRIMARY IDE connection on your motherboard while connecting the dvdrw into the SECONDARY IDE connection. Not sure how much you know about motherboards and connections but this is not to be confused with MASTER/SLAVE settings. If you have your cables swapped and connected into the secondary it could cause mounting issues if code was written badly.

Thanks a lot Shafty023 but i don't have much knowledge bout the motherboard. Could you please explain how to do it? How to make the setting of jumper so that it can work.
You said, "My recommendation is use an IDE cable solely for your hdd and another for your dvdrw". Could you explain it also.
Kindly help me out.
Thanks in advance

Hi there.

I had the same problem when installing Fedora 7.
My system is a bit different, but you might give a try.

I have a Asus P5VD2-VM with IDE hard disk.

Enter the BIOS menu and enter the onboard devices config.

Search for the SATA CONTROLLER, turn it on.
On SATA CONTROLLER MODE, select IDE.

I don´t know the BIOS of your system, but you can try.

Tell me if worked.

Good luck.

is saying, if I am understanding correctly, is that you need to have your dvd and hard drive on seprate ide cables. If you open your case, there should be a flat (grey?) cable connecting to both your dvdrom and your hd, and then to the motherboard of your computer. Pretty much any computer should have 2 IDE buses, allowing for 4 ide devices. Look at the back of your hard drive and dvd, their should be a series of 8 pins in a 4 pin wide, 2 pins tall array, with a jumper shorting across 2 of the pins, this is where you set the master/slave/cable select setting for your device. All devices are a little different, but cable select is a safe bet 90% of the time. Make sure both your DVD and HD are set to cable select. Next, find another IDE cable and plug one end into your motherboard and the other into your DVD, this puts your HD and DVD on separate physical cables, and different ide buses, which should speed up performance and reliability. It may help. And if for some reason you have to have both devices on one cable, either make sure both devices are on cable select, or make sure the HD is set as master and the dvd as slave.

Thanks Dumfrey. Yes you need to have two IDE cables on hand, one of which you already have connected to your hdd & dvdrw.

Unplug that cable from the dvdrw and make sure the jumper on the back of your hdd is set to cable select or master. You can google the model number of your hdd and find out the proper jumper spots if it doesn't tell you directly on the hdd. After that, follow that IDE cable to your motherboard and make sure it is connected to PRIMARY IDE and not SECONDARY IDE.

Once you've verified that, you can connect another IDE cable from your dvdrw to the SECONDARY IDE connection on your motherboard. Once again verify the jumper on the back of your dvdrw is set to cable select or master. Google "motherboard jumper" so you can get a picture of what they look like. It's a little piece of plastic & copper that basically slips onto 2 copper pins and shorts them out.

Once you've verified all of this and connected things correctly if you are still having issues you should try booting from a LIVE CD from another distro to make sure you don't actually have a defective dvdrw. Let me know if you still have questions.

Hi,
thanks a lot but i have only one slot for that broad bus cable and 4 slots for SATA. So how could i have two 2 IDE cables. I had tried selecting the cable slot also, but it didn't work.
Kindly consider i have only slot.

correctly, you have only one IDE port on your motherboard (the broad bus port) and 4 sata ports. now, are your dvdrom and HD both on the ide port, or is your hard drive sata?
Real quick, do you know for sure that the dvd is recognized by windows or any other OS, to verify that the dvdrom is indeed not the problem?