It's been long enough someone probably already answered you off list, but just in case you're still wondering, the letter naming of block devices in /dev/ is arbitrary and should be presumed unreliable. It is dependant on the order in which the devices were detected. In your case, it is likely that modules are being loaded in another order than before. This could happen for a variety of reasons including module renames, removals, or additions. To reliably reference block devices, use LABEL=, or UUID= in fstab, or /dev/disk/by-*/* anywhere else. This is particularly useful in SANs or switched storage like FC, iSCSI, or SAS, where the order individual disks are detected can realistically change from second to second. On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 19:36, walt<w41ter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi list, > > Here is some background for my question: > > I have a machine with two sata disks, one connected to the > onboard sata controller, the other to an add-on ESATA board > plugged into the PCIX slot. > > My puzzle: > > When I boot a kernel from the 2.6.28 series, the onboard > controller's disk gets dubbed /dev/sdb, and the ESATA disk > is /dev/sda. > > When I boot the same machine with a more recent kernel like > Linus's 2.6.30 series, the device names are reversed. > > Is this change in behavior expected based on recent kernel > patches? > > Thanks. > > > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
