I have installed redhat 9 on sony pcg-r505tl from installation cd disks. Now I can not use cdrom drive. I do not see any mount point e.g. /mnt/cdrom is missing. There is no entry like /dev/cdrom in /etc/fstab. Also /dev/cdrom is absent.

Would be grateful if some one help me to find what went wrong

You may want to check this out...
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=240199
It ended up being that I needed to compile the "ide-cd" module into the kernel ("Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support"), rather than load as module.

I am not sure if my cd-rw on docking station is an IDE/ATAPI. Just to see what happens, I used knoppix and notice that the cd-drive is on /dev/scd0. running "hwbrowser", I found that there is a scsi device, which is sony[080046] / i.LINK DVD-ROM Drive [190005].

Manufacturer: Unknown
Driver: sbp2

I suppose this should be the cd/dvd drive on my docking station.

I take the laptop off from docking station ans reboot, kudzu notice a missing sony..../i.Link... device. I remove configuration and put the the laptop back on docking station. on boot, kudzu found a device and I select "configure" with a hope that I will see the cd-drive after login. But not cdrom show up on /mnt.

I also have gone through this page to see if I can find something similar.