FX - Thanks for your help.
Use hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi in /boot/grub/menu.lst, it will save a lot of trouble.
A question first : is this likely to break anything? For example, will I still be able to play dvd movies from /dev/hdd? Will it make them jerky because hdparm will be ignored? And if root can burn cds on the current setup, why can't kmp?
Have you checked that you as a user were a member of the disk group?
According to Yast I was. But I'll try again just to be sure. My permissions are set like this : brw-rw-rw- 1 root disk 11, 0 2003-09-23 18:59 /dev/sr0 brw-r----- 1 root disk 11, 1 2003-09-23 18:59 /dev/sr1 Not much difference from yours.
What is the result of cdrecord -scanbus run as normal user?
This is interesting. What do you make of this - cdrecord: No such file or directory. Cannot open SCSI driver. cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make sure you are root. cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'. Run as root, cdrecord -scanbus gives : Linux sg driver version: 3.1.25 Using libscg version 'schily-0.7' cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial libscg transport code version (okir@suse.de-scsi-linux-sg.c-1.75-resmgr-patch '@(#)scsi-linux-sg.c 1.75 02/10/21 Copyright 1997 J. Schilling'). scsibus0: 0,0,0 0) 'Seagate ' 'STT8000A ' '5.44' Removable Tape 0,1,0 1) 'SAMSUNG ' 'CD-R/RW SW-216B ' 'Q001' Removable CD-ROM 0,2,0 2) * 0,3,0 3) * 0,4,0 4) * 0,5,0 5) * 0,6,0 6) * 0,7,0 7) * The permissions on cdrecord are : -rws--x--x 1 root root 389463 2003-09-23 18:38 /usr/bin/cdrecord Does this give you any clues? Best wishes and thanks again for your help. - Ken