When I pop a CDROM into the drive of my Macbook Pro, It spins up, I hear it, but no icon appears on the desktop. (I think it's 10.5.7; actually not sure how to verify this on Mac, but I think I saw a 10.5.7 flash by somewhere).

In the finder preferences, I have "Show these items on the Desktop" set to show HDs, External Disks, and CDs, DVDs, and ipods. All three of those are checked. I do see the internal HD on the desktop.

In Disk utility I can see the CD/DVD hardware. It says "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857E...". From Disk Utility I can eject the drive.

But in Finder, there is never a CD/DVD listed under "Devices". When I insert a disk, nothing happens, I cannot see it. I also cannot boot from bootable CDROMs by holding C down .

Suggestions?

I am not very experienced with Mac; I have used Windows for years.

EDIT Two updates:

1. I saw this article on support.apple.com, and modified the hostconfig appropriately. It did not have the AUTODISKMOUNT entry, so I added one, rebooted. Same behavior. It does not see the CDROM in Finder, does not mount it on desktop.

2. I put an old manufactured CDROM into the drive, and voila! it showed up on the desktop. The CD that does not appear is a GNome Partition Editor Live CD, which I guess is based on debian. That CD boots in other (non-Mac) PCs. I want to use this to adjust the Bootcamp partition.

Suggestions?