Mounting CD-RW freezes Linux

I have a dual-boot RedHat Linux 9/ Windows 2000 system. My CD-RW is an LG CD-RW CED-8083B. It Freezes linux everytime I try to mount it with a CD in the drive. It has done it with every CD I have tried in it. It worked fine in Mandrake 6.2 but has had the same problem in Mandrake 8.2, and RH 7.3. both of which would freeze halfway through install if i was installing them from a cd, and after I installed them from a harddrive they would still freeze when I attempted to mount a cd. for some reason, RH9 installed from the cds without a problem, but still freezes when a cd is mounted. I have had the same problem for 2 years. I don't have another cdrom i could use.