red hat and cdroms

Once again, I find myself computer stupid. I have gone back to an older version of linux with an older version of EMC. Trouble is, i can't get the cdrom to even be recognized. I have tried some terminal commands to get it to mount, but there is no mount dir and it won't let me make one.... anyone ever have this trouble?

After a bit more searching, andsearching, and reading, and trying..... i was able to get the cdrom to mount, and i was able to read files in EMC, however, the next task is figuring out how to transfer the files from the cdrom to a folder.....learning a different operating system is challenging!