[NTLUG:Discuss] USB hard drive question

[Mike LaPlante]

Fred James wrote:
> All
> I have two external USB hard drives on my Linux box, they never get 
> unplugged, and they are listed in fstab.  But on boot they don't always 
> come back as expected - the one I think of a ONE, might come back as 
> TWO, etc.  Is that just a feature of the beast?  BTW - Restarting 
> usually fixes that.
> Regards
> Fred James
>   
You can setup Udev rules to identify each drive and create symlinks such 
as /dev/usbdriveONE and /dev/usbdriveTWO.

The idea is to setup a rule that on boot detects things like 
make/model/serial number and creates a symlink from /dev/sdb1 to 
/dev/usbdriveONE. While the device may differ from sdb to sdc on each 
boot, the symlink should remain correct. So you would use the symlink in 
your fstab.

Afraid I won't be much help giving specific instructions though, I had a 
hell of time getting the rule for my two PVR cards to work right. Ended 
up just taking stabs at it and lots of reboots later it seemed to be 
working so I've left it alone ever since.

This site may be of help if you're up to the long read.

http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html


Cheers,
Mike