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Date:      Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:46:06 -0600
From:      "Mike Meyer" <mwm-dated-1013323566.f9e499@mired.org>
To:        Alan Eldridge <alane@geeksrus.net>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ATA_STATIC_IDS
Message-ID:  <15455.32686.88737.631037@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <91010086@toto.iv>

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Alan Eldridge <alane@geeksrus.net> types:
> Can anybody explain what the practical impact of not enabling ATA_STATIC_IDS
> in the kernel is?
> 
> E.g., with static ids I have my / on ad4s1a. If I don't enable ATA_STATIC_IDS,
> when I go to reboot the system, do I get an unbootable system, or one that just
> can't fsck or mount anything once it boots? (I'd guess the answer is "yes"...)

The answer is "it depends". If ATA_STATIC_IDS is enabled, the drives
are numbered so that 0 is the primary master, 1 is the primary slave,
2 is the secondary master, 3 is the secondary slave, and so
on. Hmmm. Just how many IDE controllers do you have, anyway?

If you disable ATA_STATIC_IDS, then it will search for drives in that
order, and assign them numbers sequentially as they are found.

For instance, if you have three drives now - one master on each of
three IDE controller, so that ad4s1a is the one on the third
controller, and disable ATA_STATIC_IDS, it's going to turn into
ad2s1a. ad0 will be where it used to be, and what was ad2 will now be
ad1. The syste may still boot to single user, but it's liable to be
confused about where the root is, and fstab is liable to need fixing.

Having watched someone add a drive to a system that did dynamic
numbering and have it swap to /usr while Ingres was looking for it's
raw disk partition on /home was not amusing.

	<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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