Jostein, Thank you for your offer to help. My problem, which no one seems to understand, is nothing to do with links. It is that although the ide-scsi module is loaded, nothing prevents the ide-cd drivers from taking over hdc & hdd. I thought the append line in /etc/lilo.config was supposed to do this. In boot.msg I get the line '<6>scsi1 : SCSI host adaptor emulation for IDE ATAPI devices' but no mention of scd0, scd1 because earlier in the boot process the ide drivers have loaded. XCDRoast cannot see the CD drives but can see my scsi scanner on scsi0 I have overcome all the linux newbie problems in the last few months and now have a fully working system except for cd writing, which is essential to me. Regards Peter Darren I have tried the initrd_modules line but no luck