I have been trying to burn a CD as backup for data on the harddrive before moving it to another computer. I get no error messages while I am in the process of burning it but when I take it out and then put it back in my computer is unable to read it. I get the error message:

Could not mount device.
The reported error was:
mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified

The harddrive is in an enclosure which I am accessing from a laptop.
I have FC4.
I have tried using CDRecorder and K3b with the same result.
When I had K3b burn the CD and not eject it upon burning I was able to read the CD but when I took it out and inserted again I got the above error message.

How can I be certain that the problem is with the burner, CD or reading the CD?

Have you tried to manually mount the CD?

Do you know what device your CD has been assigned (i.e. /dev/hda, /dev/sda)? You can find this by looking at the output from the command dmesg.

I would suggest you take a know good data CD, possibly one of FC4 install CD's put it in your drive and try to mount it. If you can mount it, and read the files on it, you have a write issue with the system or drive.

Have you updated your /etc/fstab file with an entry for the cdrom drive? Are you issueing the mount command from a console? If so, would you post the entry you are making? If you have updated /etc/fstab, would you post the line you have for the CDROM.

I had checked the drive with a audio CD and it worked. After getting your suggestion I put in a data disk that I knew was good and it gave the same error message.
The fstab has not been changed. CD/DVD mounts automatically. It reads:

/dev/hdc /media/cdrecorder auto pamconsole,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

Does this indicate that there is a problem with the driver rather than the drive?

Try mounting it with

mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /media/cdrecorder

If that works you might want to modify your /etc/fstab file