The oldest known version of this page was edited on
2007-05-26 15:24:51 by WolveN
[This is a snipped of the Partitioning wiki page.]
Naming of partitions
Windows: Windows uses lettering (c:\ ; e:\ , etc) for identifying partitions, regardless of which physical drive or partition, floppy devices, usb devices, CDROM/DVD, and networked shared drives.
Linux: Linux uses /dev/hdxy or /dev/sdxy (see below) to refer to the physical partition. In order to have access to the contents of a partition it must be mounted.
x will be a letter starting with a, then b,c,....
y will be a number starting with 1, then 2,3,....
Thus hda1 = First partition on the master HD.
GRUB: Grub uses the format (hdx,y) where x = hard drive and y = partition.
Grub numbers drives starting with 0.
Grub also names partitions starting with 0.
Thus grub (hd0,0) = Linux hda1 or sda1 (depending on if you have ATA, SATA, or SCSI drives).
Examples of partition names
In this example I will use a single hard drive at the first, or master position, with several primary and logical partitions (3 Primary + a single Extended partition which, as above, is divided into 3 logical Partitions.)
Note: (Linux device) Names without a trailing digit refer to the whole disk, while names with a trailing digit refer to a partition of that whole disk.
Using hda as an example with multiple partitions:
/dev/hda = Entire HD
3 primary partitions:
/dev/hda1 = First partition = GRUB (hd0,0) = Windows C:\
/dev/hda2 = Second partition = GRUB (hd0,1) = Windows E:\
/dev/hda3 = Third partition = GRUB (hd0,2) = Windows F: \
3 logical partitions (Note you can have more then 3 logical partitions within an extended partition:
Note: /dev/hda4 = Entire Extended partition. hda4 is "theoretical" in that it can not be mounted as such, but it "takes up a number".
This is true for both Linux and grub speak !
/dev/hda5 = fourth partition = GRUB (hd0,4) = Windows G:\
/dev/hda6 = fifth partition = GRUB (hd0,5) = Windows H:\
/dev/hda7 = sixth partition = GRUB (hd0,6) = I:\
HD vs SD
IDE/ATA cable = hdxy
1. Hard Drives
/dev/hda = Entire first HD, master drive on primary IDE cable.
/dev/hda1 = First partition on master drive.
/dev/hdb = Entire second HD, slave drive on primary IDE cable.
2. CDROM/DVD
/dev/hdc = Master CD on secondary IDE cable = Windows D:\
/dev/hdd = Slave CD on secondary IDE cable
SCSI devices = sdxy
1. SATA HD
2. SCSI HD
3. Zip drives
Note: Although they contain only 1 partition, zip drives are numbered "4".
ie /dev/sda4.
4. USB devices- both flash drives and hard drives.
5. Firewire devices.
Floppy
/dev/fd0 = First Floppy Drive = Windows A:\
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