[NTLUG:Discuss] OT: Stupid hardware question

[Leroy Tennison]

Robert Citek wrote:
> On Jan 18, 2008 6:14 PM, Dennis Myhand <dmyhand at suddenlink.net> wrote:
>> I am thinking about getting some extra storage and going big in the
>> process.  I am running ATA100 IDE drives on both of my systems, and they
>> are both capable of using SATA drives.  Can I add an SATA drive to a
>> system when the OS is on an ATA100 hard drive?  Will this cause problems
>> or will it work seamlessly?  Thanks, Dennis
> 
> Hard to tell if you will or won't.  Depends entirely on your system.
> The biggest issue will probably be boot order, which is specified in
> the BIOS.  After that, you may have issues with device naming, e.g.
> /dev/sda becomes /dev/sdb or other.
> 
> On way to minimize device naming issues is to use labels or UUIDs,
> which Ubuntu and probably other recent distros use.  For example,
> here's my system, which I've setup to use labels:
> 
> sudo echo -n ; (
> set -x
> sudo vol_id --label $(findfs LABEL=ubuntu)
> grep -i ubuntu /etc/fstab
> grep ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst
> )
> 
> ++ findfs LABEL=ubuntu
> + sudo vol_id --label /dev/sda5
> ubuntu
> + grep -i ubuntu /etc/fstab
> LABEL=ubuntu    /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
> + grep ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst
> # kopt=root=LABEL=ubuntu ro
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=LABEL=ubuntu ro
> quiet splash
> kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=LABEL=ubuntu ro single
> 
> The advantage of labels and UUIDs is that you no longer have to worry
> about what device the kernel assigns it to.
> 
> Regards,
> - Robert
> 
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> 
This is a good approach, just be aware that 'root=UUID' doesn't work as 
a kernel command-line parameter.