External CDROM (PCGA-CD51) not recognized by ide-cs (PCMCIA) on a Z600TEK running Redhat 9

Dear list members,

After fighting two nights long with the PCMCIA subsystem of my Redhat
Linux 9 installation I became totally frustrated and decided to ask you
for help.
Linux is not capable of recognizing my external PCMCIA-cdrom (PCGA-CD51).

My system configuration:

Sony Vaio Z600TEK
Dual boot system: Win2k and Redhat 9
Linux-Kernel: 2.4.20-18.9

I had to install linux from my win-partition as the installation-program
hang when trying to mount the cdrom via the PCMCIA-card.

At every boot following messages come up (extract):

...
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel: Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel:   options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:0c.0
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:0a.0
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel: Yenta IRQ list 0cb8, PCI irq9
Jun 25 21:16:46 Nikos-Mobile kernel: Socket status: 30000419
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile pcmcia:  cardmgr.
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile cardmgr[3776]: starting, version is 3.1.31
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile rc: Starting pcmcia:  succeeded
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile cardmgr[3776]: watching 1 sockets
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile cardmgr[3776]: Card Services release does not
match
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff:
excluding 0x170-0x177 0x220-0x22f 0x330-0x337 0x370-0x37f 0x388-0x38f
0x398-0x39f 0x4d0-0x4d7
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x1000-0x17ff: clean.
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: cs: memory probe
0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile cardmgr[3776]: socket 0: Ninja ATA
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile cardmgr[3776]: executing: 'modprobe ide-cs'
Jun 25 21:16:47 Nikos-Mobile kernel: ide-cs: GetNextTuple: No more items

...

When the system tries to initialize the cdrom I hear the high tone / low
tone beep pattern. That means that the card configuration does not work
properly. Maybe there is a kernel bug? Does anybody have any idea how to
solve this problem? For every reply I would be very thankful!!

Cheers,
Nikos