I have been having great difficulty for some months now, trying to remedy the problem as indicated below. I am using Mandrake 10. 1 community, running 2.6.8.1.1 kernal at present. I have tried a number of other distros, and they have all behaved the same way. Sometimes I can read the cdrom, once only after boot, then it fails. As I am a complete newbie, plse advise what other info I need to supply, to resolve this problem.

DMESG
cdrom: hdb: mmc-3 profile capable, current profile: 9
h
Interleaved files not (yet) supported.
File unit size != 0 for ISO file (1728).
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0

Thank You in advance

smowabp

Can you check your CDROM under a different OS?
If it's not a Distro problem then I would think that the CDROM, the connection or the cables are not OK.
only my 2 cents

Tks for the reply, JTR
I have tried the cdrom / writer under Win XP, and so far not a problem. In my initial post, I mentioned that I had tried a number of Distros; all exhibited the same symptoms.
FYI, I have tried Man 9, 10, 10.1, SuSe 9.2.
Below is another excerpt from Dmesg, after I tried to eject a disk, using the desktop icon. I had to manually eject the disk.

VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.
VFS: busy inodes on changed media.

cheers,
smowabp

Sorry for the late reply. Been quite busy.
To be honest I can't think of anymore help.
I'm not a professional either.
Maybe someone else can be more helpful.