mount: special device /dev/cdrom does not exist
 

Dear Folks,

I have a cdrom. I would like to transfer files to my hard drive. I type:

mount /cdrom

and get the error message:

mount: special device /dev/cdrom does not exist

So I try (and get the same error message) :

mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /cdrom

So I look at /etc/fstab and I have a line

/fs/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 defaults,ro,user,noauto 0 0

What do I do now? Help!
-thanks
-rob

This line:

/fs/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 defaults,ro,user,noauto 0 0

Should look like this:

/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 defaults,ro,user,noauto 0 0

Thanks, you are correct - I typed incorrectly in my question. My system does have the line:

/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 defaults,ro,user,noauto 0 0

Still no cdrom access.

Looking over your post, I see that it says that ' special device /dev/cdrom does not exist '. Do an ls -l /dev/cdrom see what you get. It should be a symbolic link to the actual device. Do you know what device your cdrom is? If you do, you can either create a new symbolic link or you can just enter the device into the fstab file. If your cdrom is ' /dev/hdc ', just change the entry in your fstab file from ' /dev/cdrom ' to ' /dev/hdc '. To create a new symbolic,
' ln -sf /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom '

Dear Linxcool,
tried the above link command and presto it *worked!* I was then curious what the link *was*, but too late. anyways, it now works, thanks very much.
-rob

You're welcome. :)

I'm having a silimar problem. I keep getting the error '/dev/cdrom is not a valid block device' I added links to /dev/hdd (That is what I got when I did a ls -l /dev/cdrom) to /etc/fstab. But had no luck...

There is a bug in red hat 7.2 that gives that error. Try running as root
depmod -ae and see if that fixes it.

I guess we can call this progress :) I now get an error that says, "Mount: Wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/cdrom or too many mounted file systems" How do I decipher this one?

two units
 

i have two units in my system, a creative dvd and a hp cd burner, initially the system recognize the dvd as cdrom and the hp as cdrom1 . because the dvd couldnot read the installation cd in order to run yast2 i run it from the hp (cdrom1). from them on when i mount the cdrom or the cdrom1 the system refers to the hp and i have no way to access the dvd unit....no clue what to do S.O.S

Russman67, make sure you are mounting a data cd and not a music cd. You can't mount a music cd. Is your cdrom drive /dev/hdd or something else? If you are trying to mount a data cd and it won't mount, try the following commands:

mkdir /cdrom
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hd? /cdrom -o ro
ls /cdrom

This will create the mount point /cdrom and mount the cd and then list the contents of folder /cdrom. Replace the ? with the correct letter. If it mounts and when you're done, run umount /cdrom to unmount the cdrom drive. Also, could you post a copy of your /etc/fstab file.

Re: two units
 

mcujino

It sounds like you have no entry in your /etc/fstab file for your dvd. It could be that the cdrom entry was changed from your dvd to your burner. So, now your burner is both cdrom and cdrom1. You could edit the cdrom line in your /etc/fstab file to make it the dvd line.

Mine works now. Very happy. Thank you.

Russman67, you're welcome. :)

BTW, how did you get it working?

I always rather use device names instead of links like /dev/cdrom
If you letsay move your cdrom from hdb to hdc .. then /dev/cdrom no longer holds