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linux sda vs hda ?

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photographerguy
Hello,

I have decided to give linux a try. Longtime Windows user, happy new Mac user, now giving Ubuntu a try. Have a little unix experience running cad systems on old SGI and HP seats.

Since I decided to attempt to learn linux, I am experimenting on a pc at work and my laptop at home. I did identical installs but...the pc at work has my partitions listed as hda1, hda3, etc and my laptop at home is sda1, sda3, etc. What is the difference?

I should mention that I have them dual boot XP/Ubuntu 5.10 breezy. I have XP on the first partition as NFTS. I have a FAT32 at the end for shared files, and the linux filesystem for the / and swap partitions.

I am pulling my hair out trrying to get the wireless to work on my Dell Inspiron 9300 at home, but I'll start another thread later for that mess.
mOrpheuS
photographerguy wrote:
the pc at work has my partitions listed as hda1, hda3, etc and my laptop at home is sda1, sda3, etc. What is the difference?

I'm not sure, but I think the "hda" designation is related to the primary master IDE drive.
remaining IDE drives are designated "hdb", "hdc" etc ...

SCSI or SATA or USB drives will be designated "sda", "sdb", "sdc" and so on.


p.s. - There might be cases of erroneous mapping, but I'm not sure about that either .
filterchild
Yeah, IDE hard disks (well, devices, actually) are hd<drive><partition>. SCSI devices (and kernel-level emulation of SCSI devices, like USB devices or, in some cases, CD-RW drives) are sd<drive><partition>.
The standard partitioning scheme nowadays is (assuming your drive is hda):
Code:
hda1 => bootloader and kernel(s)
hda2 => swap space
hda3 => root filesystem
benjicook
In linux, a laptop hard drive is registered under the /dev/sda device file in the linux 2.6 kernel. This is just file which linux uses to communicate with the drive. It makes no difference as to how you use linux. You just have to type /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda.
pjv
generally as mentioned, the only difference between a hda and sda is the type of hard disk you have on your box (ide or scsi). while the number following it like hda1 is the partition.

Hope you like linux, though it is not commonly used for desktop, it's the best for servers. But, it's gaining on popularity for desktop users since it's becoming more user friendly like ubuntu, it's stable and it's free.
ezekiel_rage
photographerguy wrote:
Hello,

I have decided to give linux a try. Longtime Windows user, happy new Mac user, now giving Ubuntu a try. Have a little unix experience running cad systems on old SGI and HP seats.

Since I decided to attempt to learn linux, I am experimenting on a pc at work and my laptop at home. I did identical installs but...the pc at work has my partitions listed as hda1, hda3, etc and my laptop at home is sda1, sda3, etc. What is the difference?

I should mention that I have them dual boot XP/Ubuntu 5.10 breezy. I have XP on the first partition as NFTS. I have a FAT32 at the end for shared files, and the linux filesystem for the / and swap partitions.

I am pulling my hair out trrying to get the wireless to work on my Dell Inspiron 9300 at home, but I'll start another thread later for that mess.



the way linux asign names to disk drive is as follows:


HD/x/n - now lets break this down;

HD- denotes that the disk drive is IDE based. if the drive SCSI or SATA based it will be designated as SD.

x- denotes the position of the drive. If its installed in the IDE controllers as the Primary Master it will be designated as HDA. If as the Primary Slave it will be designated as HDB. If as the Secondary Master, HDC. HDD if the drive is installed as the Secondary Slave.

n- this denotes the partition number. For example the first partition of the Primary Master will be designated as HDA1. Usually the primary partitions are designated with the numbers 1-4. The logical drives are given the numbers 5-n (depends on how many logical partitions you have.

Hope this sheds some light to your question
ezekiel_rage
filterchild wrote:
Yeah, IDE hard disks (well, devices, actually) are hd<drive><partition>. SCSI devices (and kernel-level emulation of SCSI devices, like USB devices or, in some cases, CD-RW drives) are sd<drive><partition>.
The standard partitioning scheme nowadays is (assuming your drive is hda):
Code:
hda1 => bootloader and kernel(s)
hda2 => swap space
hda3 => root filesystem


Of course you can also use only the first primary partition of the drive as the root partition that contains all the other mount points like /home & /boot.

Also you can use use your logical partitions for the mount points, as i think it will be cleaner. besides most systems have a 4-Primary partition-limit. so if you will assign those 4 primary partition to the mount points of a single OS. you will not have room for other OS, that is you would like to try dual-booting or install multiple OS to your machine.
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