hi everyone, i will skip the pleasantries for a change and
come to the point. brace for the flood of info:

when i run cdrecord -scanbus i get the following:

Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 J?rg Schilling
cdrecord: No such file or directory. Cannot open '/dev/pg*'. Cannot open SCSI driver.
cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make sure you are root.
cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.

in lilo.conf, i have added the hdd=ide-scsi bit.

rc.modules probes the following modules:

sr_mod
sg
ide-scsi

lsmod shows me the following about these modules:

sr_mod 14072 0 (unused)
sg 27916 0 (unused)
ide-scsi 8784 0

in /etc/fstab i have the following:

/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 iso9660 noauto,owner,ro 0 0

i made that /mnt/cdrom2 dir myself using mkdir..

dmesg |grep scsi produces the following:

Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=302 noapic,
hdd=ide-scsi, mem=nopentium, idebus=66
ide_setup: hdd=ide-scsi,,
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
scsi1 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices

less /proc/scsi/scsi produces 'Attached devices: none'

and finally, dmesg at boot shows:

hdd: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W1610A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

so i know the system at least knows it's there.. in a way.

...

my question is:

why can't i do anything with my cdrw-drive.. no mounting, no burning with
cdrecord... nothing.....

i hope i have provided enough info; if not, please let me know.

kind regards.

everything looks ok, but can you just prove this....ran "lilo" as root after this? show us the full lilo.conf

indeed; after modifying lilo.conf, i ran lilo as root to have it
incorporate the changes i made to the file. my complete file
is the following:

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 300
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only
append="noapic, hdd=ide-scsi, mem=nopentium"

image = /boot/vmlinuz.old
root = /dev/hda2
label = slack.old
read-only
append="noapic, no-hlt, hdd=ide-scsi, mem=nopentium"
# Linux bootable partition config ends

get rid of those commas in your append, and just
leave spaces

ok. i removed the commas, left the spaces. i then ran lilo as root
oncemore and rebooted. i then got some errors when rc.modules
tried to modprobe sg + sr_mod, so i commented out those lines.
when i run cdrecord -scanbus it reports my cd-r drive. yay.

thank you whansard.

now i have to figure out how to make it so that 'neenee' (my
user account name) can mount /mnt/cdrom2 (which is what
/dev/hdd links to). root can do this, but i'd like to be able to do
it from my user account.

suggestions are welcome; meanwhile i will search for a solution
in these forums.

ok. got it. i edited /etc/fstab and replaced the line:

/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 iso9660 noauto,root 0 0

with:

/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 iso9660 noauto,users,ro 0 0

thank you MasterC - i got this info from a post you made somewhere.

i was hoping the commas were it. i just knew i hadn't
seen the commas there before and i guessed it read
your "hdc=ide-scsi" as "hdc=ide-scsi,", and didn't know
what ide-scsi, is. just like typing a comma at the end
of a unix command would mess it up, like ls,