Hi, i installed win98, win2k and Mandrake8.1 and i got a Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM. when i was trying to copy a .dat file from a CD to my harddisk, i got an error called "can't read the file boo.dat", although i can view that file under /mnt/cdrom as root. I mean i can view that file, right-click my mouse and found how large it is etc....but i just can't copy it to my home directory!! Under win98 and win2k, i had no problem copying .dat files so i assume it's an I/O error. I had a look at the log and found the following: Date: September 13 blah blah blah Process: kernel Message: end_request; I/O error, dev 16:40 (hdd), sector 10812 Description: This message is generated by the linux kernel. They are usually related to detection of hardware or other low level related stuff. i issued "mount" command and got the following: /dev/hda6 on / type ext2 (rw) none on /proc type proc (rw) devfs on /dev type devfs (rw) none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620) none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw) /dev/hda8 on /home type ext2 (rw) /dev/hda1 on /mnt/windows type vfat (rw,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850) /proc/bus/usb on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw,devmode=0664,devgid=43) /dev/hdd on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,codepage=850,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850) so what's the problem and how can i fix it? Thanks a bunch, KEN

When you say you can view it but can't copy it, is that under root account or just a regular user account??? There might be a permission problem then... What is the output of the "ls -la" of that file? Lawrence

under root account. as the root i can view it's file name, size, date etc. by issuing "ls -la". and i tried in vain to copy that file as a root... thanks KEN

You still haven't answered my question! What is the printout of "ls -la" for those files? Lawrence