Mandriva 2008 uses /dev/sda for IDE drive

Dave Farrance

I put Mandriva 2008rc1 into a spare partition on my laptop for a quick
test, and then had difficulty making sense of why it wouldn't boot from
a new entry in the original grub menu.

I finally spotted that the new /etc/fstab file used the device /dev/sda
and not /dev/hda for the IDE hard drive. So I changed the relevant
entry in the grub menu to that, and it worked.

Anyone know why Mandriva 2008 has got rid of "/dev/hda"?

--
Dave Farrance

Bit Twister

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:50:18 GMT, Dave Farrance wrote:

> I finally spotted that the new /etc/fstab file used the device /dev/sda
> and not /dev/hda for the IDE hard drive. So I changed the relevant
> entry in the grub menu to that, and it worked.
>
> Anyone know why Mandriva 2008 has got rid of "/dev/hda"?

common code, less code to support,....,
downside is 15 partitions, max.

Dave Farrance

Bit Twister <BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:50:18 GMT, Dave Farrance wrote:
>
>> I finally spotted that the new /etc/fstab file used the device /dev/sda
>> and not /dev/hda for the IDE hard drive. ...
>>
>> Anyone know why Mandriva 2008 has got rid of "/dev/hda"?
>
>common code, less code to support,....,
>downside is 15 partitions, max.

And I see that my DVD drive has gone from /dev/hdc to /dev/src.

This'll mess up some of my self-written scripts. Oh well.

--
Dave Farrance

Bit Twister

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:34:03 GMT, Dave Farrance wrote:
>
> And I see that my DVD drive has gone from /dev/hdc to /dev/src.
>
> This'll mess up some of my self-written scripts. Oh well.

Yes, I have several common scripts which run across different machines
and releases. I have had to parse /etc/release to get release number
and and set variables to hide the needed command/device from main code.

David W. Hodgins

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:43:58 -0400, Bit Twister <> wrote:

> Yes, I have several common scripts which run across different machines
> and releases. I have had to parse /etc/release to get release number
> and and set variables to hide the needed command/device from main code.

What happens if the drive already has more that 15 partitions?

# sfdisk -l -uS /dev/hda|tail -n 1
/dev/hda17 88437888 156296384 67858497 8e Linux LVM

On /dev/hda, I currently have
4 fat32 partitions for w98, (including 1 primary, 3 extended (2GB each)).
1 ntfs partition for xp pro,
1 linux swap partition
5 partitions for 2007.0 (/boot, /, /var/log, /var/mnt lvm for rest)
4 partitions for 2007.1 (/boot, /, /var/log, lvm for rest).
2 reserved for primary partitons (hda3, hda4).

I currently use /dev/hdb for backup, and testing, but could move
one of the distros there, if necessary.

I suppose I could change a couple of the extended partitions to primary
ones, and move the /var/mnt for 2007.0 into the lvm, to cut down the
number of partitions. I have to be careful, as I don't want to alter
the partition number of the ntfs partition, currently hda13. I have
been through that in the past, and don't want to have to use bart pe
to edit the on disk registry, again.

I assume any changes would have to be done prior to installing
2008. Can the install be used to work with hda, instead of sda,
to facilitate preparation for the install?

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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Bit Twister

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:03:13 -0400, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:43:58 -0400, Bit Twister <BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
> What happens if the drive already has more that 15 partitions?

No idea, it's a scsi device number limit.

> # sfdisk -l -uS /dev/hda|tail -n 1
> /dev/hda17 88437888 156296384 67858497 8e Linux LVM

>
> I suppose I could change a couple of the extended partitions to primary
> ones,

Yeah, I set up my second drive as extented, looks like I'll wipe and
use those 3 primarys for common directories.


> I assume any changes would have to be done prior to installing
> 2008. Can the install be used to work with hda, instead of sda,
> to facilitate preparation for the install?

Partition movements, yes. Current partition install, no.
I just clicked away in a normal custom install and found the sdX
numbering after boot. That and realtime instead of default in fstab.
I replaced the 2008.0 MBR grub install with the 2007.1 MBR grub, copied in the
2008 stanza and so far so good.


title /2007_1
root (hd1,10)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb11 acpi=on splash=0 vga=790
initrd /boot/initrd.img

title /2008_beta
kernel (hd1,11)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb12 splash=0 vga=790
initrd (hd1,11)/boot/initrd.img

foo

Bit Twister wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:50:18 GMT, Dave Farrance wrote:
>
>>
>> Anyone know why Mandriva 2008 has got rid of "/dev/hda"?
>
> common code, less code to support,....,
> downside is 15 partitions, max.

I don't have that many partitions, but it may
not be a problem anyway.

See :

watcher@moog.netaxs.com

In article <13emism65q4uf5f@corp.supernews.com>, foo wrote:
> Bit Twister wrote:
>> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:50:18 GMT, Dave Farrance wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Anyone know why Mandriva 2008 has got rid of "/dev/hda"?
>>
>> common code, less code to support,....,
>> downside is 15 partitions, max.
>
> I don't have that many partitions, but it may
> not be a problem anyway.
>
> See :

Interesting. The message says that Mdv doesn't use the libata PATA drivers by
default, which is where the part. limit exists. I ran into the limitation
trying to install a copy of Fedora Core 7 on a drive that already has 18
partitions used. It simply wouldn't start the install. According to the
Release Notes, _both_ SATA _and_ PATA drivers are in libata, so if you have
more than 15 partitions on either type of drive, you're SOL. At least Mdv was
smart enough to keep the PATA drivers out of libata.

W.