Mounting CDROM in Arch: Help ?

Archnewt · Post by **Archnewt** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:53 pm

I've been playing with Arch Linux (largely on Pat's recommendation) since the Judd Vinet interview on tllts back in early February and it's been educational and rewarding. Most of my hurdles have been dealt with in either the Arch Wiki or online documentation.

My only real difficulty lately has been an inability to mount my CDROM or DVD drives.

Both devices are in /etc/fstab but a simple command like "mount /mnt/cd" or "mount /dev/cdrom" only gets me:
"mount:block device /dev/cdrom is write-protected, mounting read-only.
mount:wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/cdrom,
missing codepage or other error."

I'm certain that the solution is quiet simple and that I'm missing the obvious but, for now, I'm at a total loss.

What do I need to do to mount the CDROM or the DVD-ROM on my system?

Other than this minor problem, and the recent XOrg7 upgrade, my overall experience with Arch has been fairly positive. I especially like the XFCE4 desktop environment.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:09 pm

To troubleshoot, see if you can mount the cd as root instead of your regular user. If you can, then the problem is that you might need to add your user to the "disk" and the "optical" groups in /etc/groups.

If not, then we'll have to dig a bit deeper.

EDIT: It's /etc/group not /etc/groups. Edit that file as root and add your user to the optical group for starters and see if that helps.

Sorry, one more edit: are you typing the mount command correctly? Try "mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cd" (or whatever other mountpoint you want to use). Look in /mnt for your mountpoints. I think Arch creates /mnt/cd not /mnt/cdrom.

Archnewt · Post by **Archnewt** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:27 pm

Thanks.

I attempted to mount the CDROM as root, but that was unsuccessful. I just got the same error message as before.

Arch displays group information in /etc/gshadow (or at least appears to).
Next I attempted to add my user id to the "optical" and "disk" groups using:
gpasswd -a <username> <groupname>

This didn't appear to help me either though.

I appreciate the help and suggestions though. If you can help "dig deeper", I'm grateful.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:29 pm

After adding your user to those groups, did you log out and log back in? I think you need to do that for the change to take effect.

Can you post your /etc/fstab?

What kind of cd are you trying to mount?

Archnewt · Post by **Archnewt** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:44 pm

Here's the useful portion of the /etc/fstab:

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cd iso9660 user,auto,ro 0 0
/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd udf user, auto,ro 0 0

I confess that originally both had options as "noauto".

And thanks. I had already considered that I had entered the command incorrectly, but I had actually entered the command as "mount /mnt/cd".

The CD itself was an audio CD of tracks recorded by a friend. It's locally produced--not a high production quality CD at all. He just burned the tracks onto a Memorex CD-R and gave it to me.

Thanks Chess.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:57 pm

Archnewt wrote:The CD itself was an audio CD of tracks recorded by a friend. It's locally produced--not a high production quality CD at all. He just burned the tracks onto a Memorex CD-R and gave it to me.

Hmm...

Try it with a data CD and see if it works. I gotta run but I'll try to check on your status in the am and see if you got it working.

Archnewt · Post by **Archnewt** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:13 am

Thank you so much.

Your suggestion of the use of a data CD worked perfectly. I was able to mount the data CD with no trouble at all.

I was also able to mount a data DVD.

So, thanks to your help, should I conclude that the CD itself is the problem?

I appreciate your help. I didn't really want to tank on Arch anyway. It's really a great little distro.

Thanks again.

thetza · Post by **thetza** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:41 am

you generally don't mount audio cd's. just use cdparanoia or some other ripping software.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:33 am

Archnewt wrote:Thank you so much.

Your suggestion of the use of a data CD worked perfectly. I was able to mount the data CD with no trouble at all.

I was also able to mount a data DVD.

So, thanks to your help, should I conclude that the CD itself is the problem?

No, like Thetza said, you don't mount audio CD's. When you said you couldn't mount it as root, and also said it was an audio CD, I figured that had to be the problem.

I appreciate your help. I didn't really want to tank on Arch anyway. It's really a great little distro.

Thanks again.

You're very welcome!

Archnewt · Post by **Archnewt** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:11 pm

Thanks guys (thetza, Chess). I appreciate your patience and help.