I have 3 icons on my kde3 screen cd-r, cdrom, and dvd. If I select the dvd every thing works OK. if I select cdr I get an error message something like "not a block device" . If I select the cdrom it reads the DVD device. It does not mount CD ROM. Can anyone help?
P.S.
If I right click each icon and select properties they each give proper identifiers.
thanks for any help
Don

what is the device name in properties for cd-r? Check if it exists, and if it is a symlink check if points to the right place. Also check /etc/fstab for all proper mounting poop, and don't try to mount audio CD's.

1.The device name for the CD_R is /dev/cdrecorder.
2. please explain symlink furter.
3 here is a copy of fstab



/dev/hda3 / reiserfs defaults 1 2
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 /windows/C vfat noauto,user 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /windows/D vfat noauto,user 0 0
/dev/hda2 swap swap pri=42 0 0
Thanks for your prompt assistance
Don

2. man symlink

It's a link to another device. Probably /dev/scd0 or /dev/sr0. If, into a terminal, you type:
ls -l /dev/cdrecorder

It will show you what file it's symlinked from. If it's a symlink of a symlink, find the raw device. Do a ls -l /dev/X where X is the other symlink until you find the final device.

What distro is that? SuSE?

hello:
I don't think the drives are linked but, I will iclude the results of my test for you to look at.
I am using SUSE 8.0
Here is the test.
dwheeler1:~> ls -1 /dev/cdrecorder
/dev/cdrecorder
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~> ls -1 /dev/cdrom
/dev/cdrom
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~> ls -1 /dev/dvd
/dev/dvd
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~>
I still have the problem. I hope you see something.
Thanks
Don

In the ls commands, you used a number ' 1 ' after the ' - '. It's supposed to be the letter ' l ' not a number ' 1 '. Try the commands again with the letter ' l '.

The letter is L, only lowercase, sometimes that can be confusing with the lowercase lettering, sorry for the confusion, thanks linuxcool for clarifying

hello:
Ok, i have some results here.
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~> ls -l /dev/cdrecorder
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jul 26 09:57 /dev/cdrecorder -> /dev/sr0
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~> ls -l /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jul 26 09:57 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/hdd
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~> ls -l /dev/dvd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jul 26 09:57 /dev/dvd -> /dev/hdd
donwhe@donaldwheeler1:~>This tells me that the cdrecorder is linked to sr0 and cdrom and dvd are linked to hdd .
1 the cdrecorder and cdrom are the same device so shouldn't they be linked to the same device instead with the dvd.
2. where would I go to change these linkages.
3. what are the proper linkages.
4 If you haven't figured it out yet I am a REAL NEWBIE.
Thanks for your help.
Don

as root type ln -sf /dev/sr0 /dev/cdrom

linkages, huh huh, sounds like something I would say! Let me try to go in order:

1. Yes they are the same device, and that is all fine and dandy, and you should follow rshaw's advice... I am just gonna try to tell you why it may have been setup that way. /dev/sr0 and /dev/hdd are both RAW devices, not symlinks to the actual device, but the device themselves. The reason I would guess your system setup the symlinks that way is because some burning programs may look for /dev/sr0 rather than /dev/hdd to burn to, and if they only found that your symlink was set to /dev/hdd then it might not work properly. This is how the system can "best guess" what you want, but you, as always, have the option to change things to your needs, and that's why rshaw has provided the updated symlink for you. (hope that makes sense, and isn't too wrong).

2. To change them, you just need to be in a terminal, and most likely root. To actually see what you have (a list of all your devices) go to /dev (but BEWARE, do not change things if you don't know what you are doing, you may have a dead system if you do)

3. For what? The proper name would be symlink, the proper symlinks are whatever you want them to be to the actual devices. To know the actual devices you need to know the hardware. Example:
Primary, Master hard drive = /dev/hda
Primary , Secondary hard drive (or cdrom, etc) /dev/hdb

And so on, if you have a question about a device in particular, search around a bit, and if you don't find it, ask.

4. Sweet, me too, welcome to the club.

Cool

hello all
First of all I want to thank each of you, I have learned something from each response.
I have still have problems though.The error messages I get are as follows.
cdrecorder cannot mount special device /dev/cdrecorder.does not exist
cdrom the same except cdrom for cdrecorder.
dvd cannot mount Too Many levels of symbolic linkage.

How can I undo levels of linkages, one of the thing I learned is that there is a manual built into LINUX. It does not give any examples of undo.
Thanks for all your help
Don

Well actually you would just make the new symlinks instead of undoing the "levels". So you would find the actual device, then symlink to it. To force a new symlink over an old, unusable one, use the -f option with the LN command.

Cool