Drive order backwards in linux

You might get better responses in the Software/Linux forum.

 

Peter 

I'll try it, but I think it's a dell hardware thing that's causing it - with (hd0) partitioned 32MB dell EISA fat and the rest windows ntfs.

I tried changing the ide drive jumper from cable select to master, and the computer couldn't find drive 0.  I wonder if it makes any difference how the usb drive is jumpered.  I wouldn't think so, but I've never had to think about that before.

 

thanks,

 

lynnevan 

I don't believe what you are describing has anything to do with the utility partition.  I have Linux setup on all (most) of my machines.  Unfortunately, Linux seems to want to assign the card reader drives and other USB drives before the HD (maybe IDE HDs come before the USB drives).  But all the partitions on a given HD all have the same root device (e.g. /sda, so the utility partition would be /sda1 and the Windows partition would be /sda2).  However, if you add a card reader, suddenly the HD is /sde.

 

Peter 

This (Dell) isn't mine.

I usu run 2 an7 Abit mobo/2800 AMD Sempron, 1GB ram, home made computers w/ XP on hd0 (IDE) & 3 versions of linux on hd1(IDE),

Both computer same setup, different versions of linux. 

If I add a usb drive, or need to mount a thumb drive, that becomes sdc or sdd. 

I don't know about card readers, but I've never had a problem w/ drive order and usb drives in 8 years of futzing around w/ linux and other older computers. 

This is my first experience w/ a Dell computer.  So, it seems logical to me that the problem is a Dell thing.  I don't know what's causing it

so I don't know how to fix it.

But the problem isn't native to linux.  I've had too much experience w/ linux to go for that. What I'm saying is that it is a linux/Dell thing, with Dell

being the origin of my problems. 

 

I did submit this to the software group, but no replys yet.

 

Do you have an opinion on the "bios upgrade question"? 

 

thanks,

 

lynn

I'm not a Linux expert, but I don't think this is a Dell issue.  Linux is deciding how to order the drives (in Windows I don't get this weird order, but Windows can do strange things with drive ordering at times).

 

Did you other machines have IDE rather than SATA drives.  Linux treats them differently and I suspect that is the issue.

 

Peter 

Both machines have two fixed harddrives, both IDE, not SATA.  They used to be called hda & hdb, but recently

most Linux OSs, have decided all drives are basically SCSI, and have started calling hd0 'sda', hd1 'sdb', and if you

add usb drives to those two IDE drives they get called sdc, sdd, etc.  If you temporarily insert a thumb drive, it

should automount and assumes the next sd? in the alphabet. Run 'sfdisk -l' to see the drive order and partitioning

of all your drives.  For instance, I'm on Fedora on the usb drive - that's obviously the 2nd hard drive, because the

first is the Dell/Windows original IDE drive -  I'll run 'sfdisk -l' ---------->

 \>>  sfdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 14593 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1          0+   2549    2550-  20482874+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2       2550    5099    2550   20482875   83  Linux
/dev/sda3       5100    7649    2550   20482875   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       7650   14592    6943   55769647+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5       7650+   7779     130-   1044224+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       7780+  10329    2550-  20482874+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7      10330+  14592    4263-  34242547    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 4863 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1          0+      3       4-     32098+  de  Dell Utility
/dev/sdb2   *      4    4861    4858   39021885    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/sdb4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty

Disk /dev/sdc: 1023 cylinders, 126 heads, 62 sectors/track
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
  for C/H/S=*/255/63 (instead of 1023/126/62).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1          0+    497-    498-   3996896+   7  HPFS/NTFS
                end: (c,h,s) expected (497,151,38) found (496,254,63)
/dev/sdc2          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/sdc3          0       -       0          0    0  Empty
/dev/sdc4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty

As you can see, for some reason the original Dell IDE hard drive is listed in 2nd place as 'sdb'.  'sdc' is an NTFS thumb drive I have connected at the moment.

 

I have installed linux before in usb drives and never had a problem - a year or so ago it would have been 'hda', 'hdb', then start w/  'sda', sdb, etc.

 

Currently, ubuntu, fedora, archlinux, opensuse (not mandriva) order all drives starting w/ hd0 as sda, hd1 as sdb, and any drives added after as sdc, sdd, etc.  I've never had a SATA drive, but I assume it would work the same.

 

The only reason I think it is related to Dell is that it's never happened to me before.  I also can't imagine Abit or Asus or other mobos I've had losing drive 0, because it was jumpered as Master instead of CableSelect.  But, maybe it is my problem.  I

formatted the usb drive w/ Qparted Live and so was completely independent of any Operating System.  All partitions were preformatted either ext3, swap, or NTFS w/o lables.  Could that cause a problem?  I wouldn't think so, but I'm not positive.

 

Anyway, back to the 'bios update'.  Remember that this computer isn't mine, and I'm leary of doing anything that might upset

the basic system as it was before I got here.  I've put hd0 mbr back to it's original condition so I can unplug my usb drive, and

window boots normally.  Abit is easy as far as upgrading the bios, but I've no experience w/ Dell.  And this seems to be a fairly old model.  What's yor opinion?

 

Talk about Windoz doing strange thing, I had to reinstall Windoz some months ago, and because I had a NTFS partition on the 2nd hard drive, it decided that was "C" and installed Windoz on hd0 as "J".

 

Re yr last comment about SATA drives, this computer doesn't come equiped for SATA drives and a usb doesn't qualify as SATA, but does qualify as SCSI.

 

thanks,

 

lynn