[olug] How to force internal HDD to be sda?

[Kevin D. Snodgrass]

--- On Wed, 9/15/10, Sam Tetherow <tetherow at shwisp.net> wrote:
> Check to make sure your boot order in
> bios starts with your internal 
> hard disk and if you have the option to order the hard
> disks make sure 
> that the internal HD is first in the list.  /dev
> assigns the HDs in the 
> order it sees them coming out of bios.  If you always
> get /dev/sdb for 
> the internal drive then you can change the order in your
> devices.map 
> file in grub, but that doesn't sound like it is the case.
> 
> Abraham wrote:
> > Just taking a stab in the dark but... could this be
> something that could be
> > fixed with jumper settings or BIOS options? If your
> internal HDD isn't
> > specifically identified as the primary master, maybe
> the BIOS is guessing
> > every time?

Thanks both for trying.

Boot order in BIOS is:
1) CD/DVD
2) Internal HDD
3) none

Internal HDD is on Primary Master, internal CD/DVD is Secondary Master.


$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb6             18191124   3991760  14014624  23% /
tmpfs                   511656       272    511384   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1               108865     69377     33867  68% /boot
/dev/sda1             58598892     53076  58545816   1% /media/a9766b26-aefe-4168-a9dd-e9e1a482bddd


When I boot without the external USB drive plugged in, the internal HDD is assigned /dev/sda.  This is really irratating...  Almost Microsoft-like.

Just remembered an earlier reply about ordering of drivers/modules.  At the time of that reply I had rebooted that laptop without the USB drive attached, so attaching it and running lsmod showed all USB stuff at the "top", i.e. the end of the list.  Now, booting with the USB drive attached, I see this:


Module                  Size  Used by
nfs                   294461  1 
fscache                43969  1 nfs
ext2                   59827  1 
fuse                   57233  2 
nfsd                  267660  13 
lockd                  66512  2 nfs,nfsd
nfs_acl                 2365  2 nfs,nfsd
auth_rpcgss            38163  2 nfs,nfsd
exportfs                3512  1 nfsd
sunrpc                198573  19 nfs,nfsd,lockd,nfs_acl,auth_rpcgss
cpufreq_ondemand        8764  1 
powernow_k8            14721  0 
freq_table              3955  2 cpufreq_ondemand,powernow_k8
ipv6                  275768  32 
arc4                    1433  2 
ecb                     2087  2 
snd_intel8x0           28727  3 
microcode              18282  0 
snd_intel8x0m          11779  0 
snd_ac97_codec        115547  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m
ac97_bus                1330  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq                53005  0 
snd_seq_device          6159  1 snd_seq
ath5k                 146264  0 
snd_pcm                80324  4 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec
mac80211              220214  1 ath5k
ath                     9374  1 ath5k
amd64_edac_mod         17057  0 
edac_core              39175  3 amd64_edac_mod
cfg80211              134041  3 ath5k,mac80211,ath
i2c_sis96x              5715  0 
shpchp                 28556  0 
joydev                  9771  0 
sis900                 17743  0 
k8temp                  3699  0 
edac_mce_amd            7855  1 amd64_edac_mod
mii                     4278  1 sis900
snd_timer              19882  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
rfkill                 17218  1 cfg80211
snd                    62929  12 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               6390  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          7437  3 snd_intel8x0,snd_intel8x0m,snd_pcm
pata_acpi               3419  0 
firewire_ohci          20544  0 
firewire_core          44982  1 firewire_ohci
ata_generic             3427  0 
crc_itu_t               1547  1 firewire_core
yenta_socket           24312  0 
rsrc_nonstatic          8721  1 yenta_socket
video                  21629  0 
output                  2221  1 video
pata_sis               11436  3 
usb_storage            45368  1 
radeon                711725  2 
ttm                    54819  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper         24738  1 radeon
drm                   176953  4 radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit            5045  1 radeon
i2c_core               25709  5 i2c_sis96x,radeon,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit


Sorry about the word wrap.  That is Yahoo!'s gooey mail interface.

>From bottom to top, I use "usb_storage" loaded before "pata_sis".  Could this be the genesis of the problem?

Now I'll muck around to findout what decides, where it is decided, whetever, the load order and see if I can load "pata_sis" before "usb_storage".  This is probably in initramfs?


Kevin D. Snodgrass