Mounting a CD-ROM Drive
To access your CD it must first be mounted (RedHat 7.1)
Posted 11.06.2004 | Updated 23.05.2006 | Contributed by Andy Mallett


Linux can be a bit frustrating sometimes for users who are used to the familiarity of MS Windows. One major difference is the need to mount drives before they can be used. Linux automatically mounts the primary hard disk on boot, but not (currently) other dives like CDROMs and USB drives.

The process of mounting is to take the physical device, as listed in the /dev directory, and to allocate it a sub-directory for file swapping, traditionally created inside the /mnt directory. It's a bit similar to the mounting and unmounting of USB drives under MS Windows, before they can be used. Windows automatically allocates a drive letter to the USB drive, Linux doesn't.
The directory referring to the physical CDROM drive can vary. See Mounting FAT Partitions for a description of how Linux allocates names to devices. In this example my physical CDROM device is called /dev/hdb.

The first step is to create a sub-directory inside the /mnt directory which will represent the CDROM drive. I have stuck with convention and created a directory called /mnt/cdrom. Note all small letters are used, remember Linux is case sensitive.

The second step is the mount command. Typing the following will link the physical CDROM device to the specified directory, using the standard CDROM file system ISO9660:

mount  -t  iso9660  /dev/hdb  /mnt/cdrom

So file swapping can now be achieved through the /mnt/cdrom directory. CD to /mnt/cdrom and run the ls command to take a look at the CD. Note that the CD cannot be ejected until the volume is unmounted, thus:

umount  /mnt/cdrom

You must be out of the /mnt/cdrom directory to do this.