/dev/cdrom link disappearing when in Gnome & insert a "disc" into virtual cdrom drive

I have a RHEL 6.5 build, running in a VMware VM, which ordinarily boots into runlevel 3. I have all the X-Windows packages installed so can boot into runlevel 5 if required.

I have a link from sr0 to /dev/cdrom:

[root@rhel ~]# ls -l /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 3 Apr  3 08:35 /dev/cdrom -> sr0

which is great, and an entry in fstab so I can mount media when required:

/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom iso9660 ro,noauto,nosuid,noexec,nodev 0 0

When I boot into runlevel 5 (e.g. via "init 5") and get the GDM greeter, the link is still there. Logging in to X-windows as root leaves the link as expected...however when I insert a disc (i.e. "insert" an ISO in the VMware virtual CDROM drive for the VM) the link disappears:

[root@rhel ~]# ls -l /dev/cdrom
ls: cannot access /dev/cdrom: No such file or directory

If I recreate the link and insert a disc into the VM cdrom drive the link persists! However, reboot the machine and login to X with root and then inset the disc into VM cdrom drive and the link disappears again.

The link only disappears when logging in as root. Logging in as other users and performing the same tests, probably unsurprisingly, doesn't affect the link.

I have attempted disabling the Nautilus automounter in gconf (/apps/nautilus/preferences/media_automount false) which has stopped the media being automounted in Gnome but not stopped the link being removed.

Any ideas what might be removing the link and how to stop it?

Many thanks

Aidan