🚀 go-pugleaf

BS wrote:
> 
> I installed RH5.1 from CD onto a clean system by booting from the CD ROM.
> Since installing I have only been able to mount the CD one time.
> Now my box will not boot from the CD and when I try and mount it I get one
> of two error messages depending on where I am when I try and mount it.
> 
> 1) mount: can't find cdrom in /etc/mtab or /etc/fstab
> My little bit of (dangerous) knowledge shows me that it is in fstab, where
> it should be, and not in mtab, where I believe it shouldn't be.

/etc/fstab is kinda like a mapping and blueprint of your filesystem.
Mapping in the sense that it determine what kind of fs is associated
with what devices. Blueprint in the sense that it determine what to
mount and when to mount, and as to check the fs at various degree and
the order to be done.

/etc/mtab on the other hand just show what have been mounted.

> 
> 2) mount: the kernel does not recognize /dev/cdrom as a block device
>             (maybe 'insmod driver'?)
> 

Try making a link to /dev/cdrom. For a IDE setup:
Primary master is /dev/hda
Primary slave is /dev/hdb
Secendary master is /dev/hdc
Secondary slave is /dev/hdd

Say if your CDROM is connected to secondary master, do as root:
ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom

this will simply create a symbolic link from hdd to cdrom.

> Now what gets me is that I can't boot from the cdrom anymore. I have tried
> 10x, 16x, 24x and 36x drives that are all atapi compliant. I have tried
> these as prim. slave, sec. master and sec. slave, all with the same degree
> of failure. The cdrom is always picked up by pnp, but the boot process will
> not recognise it exists. Startup logs show that it is not recognised as a
> block device.

The ability for booting from CDROM, from my understanding, is always MB
dependent and independent to OSes. As to the startup error log (I assume
that you are mounting the CDROM at boot), it will be gone once the link
is created or you may simply edit /etc/fstab

/dev/hdx              /mnt/cdrom              iso9660 defaults,ro      
0 0

Again /dev/hdx have to be changed to reflect your physical setup...ie.
slave/master, primary/secondary.

> 
> This is on a dedicated linux system, and it was originally installed from
> the 10x cdrom set as prim.slave. I have made no changes to the bios since I
> installed it.
> 
> I can't help feeling that I have missed something blatently obvious, but
> cant sus out what it is.
> 
> Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.
> TIA
> Brian
> --
> Normal service will resume as soon as we find out what normal is.

-- 
Regit Young : regit@wantree.com.au