Has Anybody Wondered...

[random29]

I just figured how to get my cd-rw drive working in Linux Mandrake 8.0. It was a matter of creating a symbolic link.

Coming from a Windows background this seems strange to me, but maybe its just cause I don't get it. I had a cd in my cd-rw drive when I rebooted the computer, it was a game by the way. After linux mounted all the filesystems I had listed in /etc/fstab I was able to type ls -al at the console and display all the files that was on the cd.
After typing "eject" at the console and placing a new cd in the drive, I got the following error message when typing ls -al
#Input/Output error.
When I put the original cd back in,.. no problems. I'm able to type ls -al and all the files display. Hmmm... this isn't really any different then when you remove a floppy disk with a program on it that you are currently running. Except, here the program "ls" has terminated before the eject request.

Heh? Do I have to manually mount my cd-rom drives each time I insert a new CD? If so, it seems rather ridiculous to me.

Any answers to this bizarre problem would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[Antho]

I believe that unless you've got an automounting program on your box, you have to manually mount/unmount any filesystems not listed in /etc/fstab with the auto option on.

[bdg1983]

Before ejecting the CD, you have to unmount the drive. 'umount /mnt/cdrom'. That's 'umount' without the 'n'.

That is the design of Unix/Linux. You have to mount a filesystem to be able to use it and umount when done. Once you get some experience with Linux, you will see the reasons why.

[Malakin]

If you are in a certain directory in your cd, then you eject that cd, put in a new cd where that directory doesn't exist and type "ls" again it will say input/output error.
This is the only thing I can think of that would cause this problem in Mandrake 8.
so when getting the error, try typing "cd /mnt/cdrom" and then "ls"

[Malakin]

With mandrake 8 you do *not* have to unmount and mount your cd drive, this is handled automatically as it should be (IMHO)