I've got seperate DVD and CD-RW drives and SuSE Linux 8.1. My problem is that it doesn't recognise the CD-RW drive (which shuold work under Linux) and the DVD drive is /media/cdwriter. What should I do to make them both available correctly? I know this is a dumb question but I've never used Linux before yesterday...

please open a root shell and type hwinfo --cdrom and post the results here.

17: SCSI 00.0: 10602 CD-ROM (DVD)
[Created at scsi.229]
Unique ID: zyP1.jeBq9TlHTZ6
Hardware Class: cdrom
Model: "SAMSUNG PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A"
Vendor: "SAMSUNG"
Device: "PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A"
Revision: "1.03"
Serial ID: "266998"
Driver: "ide-scsi"
Device File: /dev/sr0
Drive status: no medium
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no
Drive Speed: 48

18: SCSI 01.0: 10602 CD-ROM (CD-RW)
[Created at scsi.229]
Unique ID: Q8g5.kuctb3v10UD
Hardware Class: cdrom
Model: "PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A"
Vendor: "PLEXTOR"
Device: "CD-R PX-W4824A"
Revision: "1.03"
Driver: "ide-scsi"
Device File: /dev/sr1
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no
Drive Speed: 40
Volume ID: "ENTERTAIN"
Creation date: "1999090200502100"

ok, choose 'file manager(super user mode)' or from the root shell type 'konqueror', browse to ->/boot/grub/menu.lst right click on it and choose 'open with' ->kate,kwrite,kedit(which ever, doesn't really matter). in the section under 'title linux' is a line that starts with 'kernel (hdx,x)' you'll find an entry that reads hdc = ide-scsi, in the same line add 'hdd=ide-scsi', save and exit. at the root prompt enter'SuSEconfig', then 'hwinfo --cdrom'. and post the results again.