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Drive numbering quandry

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File Shepard

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Jan 19, 2012, 10:37:12 PM1/19/12
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I'm trying to do backups to a set of 4 160 gig drives I've got so I
bought a PCI IDE card (StarTech) to be a second controller. What I want
to do is have an IDE cable and power cable sticking out one of the PCI
slot covers so I can plug in one of the drives, do a backup to it with
rsync, then unplug the drive until next time. I'm not trying to hot
swap them or anything.

What I'm wondering is if there's a way to map a certain drive (or drive
type) to a consistent wd number. The BIOS in the StarTech card gets
read and processed before the motherboard BIOS, so everytime I plug a
drive into it that becomes wd0 and the machine won't boot because my
boot drive is now wd1. Here are some relevant excerpts from my dmesg:


Original, no 2nd pciide:

pciide0 at pci0 dev 31 function 1 "Intel 82801AA IDE" rev 0x02:
DMA,channel 0
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <ST3120025ACE>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA48, 114473MB, 234441648 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2

2nd ide card installed (nothing connected to it):

pciide0 at pci1 dev 10 function 0 "ITExpress IT8212F" rev 0x13: DMA,
channel 0
pciide0: using irq 11 for native-PCI interrupt
pciide1 at pci0 dev 31 function 1 "Intel 82801AA IDE" rev 0x02: DMA,
channel 0
wd0 at pciide1 channel 0 drive 0: <ST3120025ACE>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA48, 114473MB, 234441648 sectors
wd0(pciide1:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
atapiscsi0 at pciide1 channel 1 drive 0

2nd ide in, drive connected:

pciide0 at pci1 dev 10 function 0 "ITExpress IT8212F" rev 0x13: DMA,
channel 0
pciide0: using irq 11 for native-PCI interrupt
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <ST9160821A>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA48, 152627MB, 312581808 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 5
pciide1 at pci0 dev 31 function 1 "Intel 82801AA IDE" rev 0x02: DMA,
channel 0
wd1 at pciide1 channel 0 drive 0: <ST3120025ACE>
wd1: 16-sector PIO, LBA48, 114473MB, 234441648 sectors
wd1(pciide1:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
atapiscsi0 at pciide1 channel 1 drive 0


The ST3120025ACE is the boot drive, and I want that to stay as wd0.
I've tried booting from the ST3120025ACE plugged into the StarTech
controller and plugging the backup drive into the internal controller,
but that hasn't worked yet for some reason.

The StarTech card ("ITExpress IT8212F") is always pciide0 and will stay
plugged in, I just want to unplug a drive from it and still be able to boot.

Specifics probably don't matter here, but it's OpenBSD 4.7 and the
machine is an old Dell Optiplex GX110.

Thanks,

Alan, AB1JX

Maurice Janssen

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Jan 20, 2012, 2:52:27 AM1/20/12
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File Shepard <no...@nowhere.org> wrote:
>I'm trying to do backups to a set of 4 160 gig drives I've got so I
>bought a PCI IDE card (StarTech) to be a second controller. What I want
>to do is have an IDE cable and power cable sticking out one of the PCI
>slot covers so I can plug in one of the drives, do a backup to it with
>rsync, then unplug the drive until next time. I'm not trying to hot
>swap them or anything.
>
>What I'm wondering is if there's a way to map a certain drive (or drive
>type) to a consistent wd number. The BIOS in the StarTech card gets
>read and processed before the motherboard BIOS, so everytime I plug a
>drive into it that becomes wd0 and the machine won't boot because my
>boot drive is now wd1. Here are some relevant excerpts from my dmesg:

Sure, see http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html (last part of section 14.1).
Then you'll have something like d8373533561669a0.a instead of /dev/wd1a
in your fstab.

>Specifics probably don't matter here, but it's OpenBSD 4.7 and the
>machine is an old Dell Optiplex GX110.

I think you need to upgrade to at least 4.8 to be able to use DUID's.

--
Maurice

John McGrail

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Jan 20, 2012, 9:49:21 AM1/20/12
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On 2012-01-20, File Shepard <no...@nowhere.org> wrote:
>
> What I'm wondering is if there's a way to map a certain drive (or drive
> type) to a consistent wd number.

...
>
> Specifics probably don't matter here, but it's OpenBSD 4.7 and the
> machine is an old Dell Optiplex GX110.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alan, AB1JX

If you can upggrade to 5.0, it has Disk UID support. This allows the OS
to recognize your disks no matter what order they are attached in ... See
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#DUID
for more info

--
rat...@food.skaterat.net
All foods should be removed to reply

File Shepard

unread,
Jan 20, 2012, 11:30:56 PM1/20/12
to
John McGrail wrote:
> On 2012-01-20, File Shepard <no...@nowhere.org> wrote:
>> What I'm wondering is if there's a way to map a certain drive (or drive
>> type) to a consistent wd number.
>
> ...
>> Specifics probably don't matter here, but it's OpenBSD 4.7 and the
>> machine is an old Dell Optiplex GX110.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Alan, AB1JX
>
> If you can upggrade to 5.0, it has Disk UID support. This allows the OS
> to recognize your disks no matter what order they are attached in ... See
> http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#DUID
> for more info
>

Thanks, I'll start downloading it. This can be a fairly minimal
installation for a LAN backup client, which is good because I'll be
downloading over a modem for a week or two. wget to the rescue.

Alan
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