PCI card IDE controller changes hard drive order

From: Andy Axnot (andy_at_nowhere.invalid)
Date: 11/27/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:18:12 GMT

I recently decided to add one more hard drive to another box which
multi-boots W2K and Mepis, PCLinuxOS (and now) Kubuntu. I added a PCI ATA
controller card I had on hand, an Iwill (HighPoint) ProATA66.

This worked fine in Windows, and the FAT32 half of the new hard drive was
seen and usable. But when I tried booting into Mepis it just started then
said 'kernel panic.' Same with PCLinuxOS. I then tried Mepis as a live
CD and found the problem is that these two distros put the hard drives on
the controller card at the beginning of the drive list. That is, the new
hard drive on the controller card is now hda, and the original hda, the
hard drive that is Master on the primary onboard IDE controller of the
motherboard, is now hde!

Not good. Someone on the Mepis forum has a similar problem, but he noted
that this was not true for all distros. Specifically he mentioned Ubuntu
or Kubuntu, so I downloaded Kubuntu and verified that this is the case.
Works fine in Kubuntu, live CD or installed, the added hard drive becomes
hde. Mepis and PCLinuxOS make the new drive /dev/hda.

So it seems that Linux itself decides where the new drive goes, not just
the hardware arrangement. Can anyone tell me where/how this is done? Is
it accessible or buried in the kernel? Any info appreciated,
comprehensible info especially so :-)

Andy

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