hda and sda

[johnd]

I have just noticed that Mandriva is calling my PATA drive sda instead of the traditional hda.

 

Can anyone tell me why this is so?

 

Thanks.

John

[coverup]

I have just noticed that Mandriva is calling my PATA drive sda instead of the traditional hda.

 

Can anyone tell me why this is so?

 

Thanks.

John

It just does :-) The hda, hdb, etc. naming convention was used for ATA drives. SATA/PATA drives have different controllers and use different drivers AFAIK.

[johnd]

Yes - but SATA and PATA are ATA drives. Traditionally hda is for the first parallel ATA drive and sda for the first serial ATA drive. My drive is PATA and is called sda.

[tux99]

It just does :-) The hda, hdb, etc. naming convention was used for ATA drives. SATA/PATA drives have different controllers and use different drivers AFAIK.

 

ATA is just a generally used as a short name form of PATA, so it's the same thing.

 

The use of sd devices instead of hd devices for PATA drives, has to do with the switch to the new libata kernel drivers for many PATA chipsets.

[scarecrow]

Due to the libata libraries mentioned above, both SATA and IDE drives are now seen as /dev/sdx by any kernel following 2.6.20 or so.