I've been wondering why my Linux (Mandrake 9.2) install on one of my machines wouldn't let me install a number of packages that installs on other machines would. I think I've found out why. It seems that it detects my CDROM drive as a hard drive. My IDE configuration is as follows:

IDE0 -
Master - Hard Drive
Slave - Hard Drive
IDE1 -
Master - Hard Drive
Slave - CDROM

Why does Linux show my CDROM as HDD? Is there a config file I can modify to fix it? If I switch the CDROM to the Master of the Secondary will that fix it? Will it cause problems with a hard drive being the Secondary Slave?

Thanks,

(BTW, I'm using an LG CDROM with LG's firmware update available from us.lgservice.com. It seems to work just fine and hasn't trashed my CDROM. I know the drive itself isn't causing my problem because I have tried using two other CDROM drives in the LG's place with the same results)

but does the cd work when you mount it? thats all that really matters =P
tell us if you can copy some data onto your home dir

All distros do this.
Primary Master = hda
Primary Slave = hdb
Secondary Master = hdc
Secondary Slave = hdd

If you are having problems, it has nothing to do with seeing your Cdrom as hdd.

I had been told that wiyh linux "hd" stands for hard device not hard drive.

Any IDE drive is called hd* so that's not the problem.

Arvind