Mounting a CD-ROM Drive
Getting around this distro's view of discs (Fedora Core 3)
Posted 30.11.2005 | Updated 23.05.2006 | Contributed by Andy Mallett


I've been running FC3 on my laptop, an HP/Compaq nx5000. Attempting to view a CD-ROM from the KDE CD icon brings up the the error..

"Cannot find /mnt/cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab"

There's no usual or obvious entry for the CD/DVD-ROM device in the /dev directory and running the /sbin/fdisk -l command doesn't show it either.

The clue comes in the fstab reference. fstab (File Systems Table) keeps 'tabs' on the file system, typically listing all used disks and disk partitions and indicates how they are to be used or otherwise integrated into the overall system's file system. So take a peek at this file..

more /etc/fstab

The bottom line indicates what FC3 is calling this device.. 

LABEL=/    /               ext3
/dev/hdc   /media/cdrom    auto


I like to do things the BSD way, so create a directory for mounting the drive to..

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

..and mount the drive thus..

mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom

Looking inside /mnt/cdrom reveals all..

To unmount the drive for removal, get out of the /mnt/cdrom dieectory and type the following command..

umount /mnt/cdrom

Each time a new disc is loaded, the drive must be remounted.