Aftewr installation on the first login, there is no icon for the CD on the GNOME desktop. Inserting a CD into the drive makes one appear.
This is the designed behavior for this. Unless you have a CD in the drive the icon will not appear. (It will also mount it, or play music if it is an audio CD) There is a capplet in the GNOME Control Center to control the behavior of this.
When I remove the CD , the icon is still there. ( checked with RHL 7.0-Guiness )