[TriLUG] new SATA drive 101

[Christopher L Merrill]

So I'm back in the Linux world for a while - and thought I'd better check
my understanding before I format something important :>

I'm adding a new drive to a machine that has the following
1 SATA drive that was present during installation of the OS (CentOS 4)
1 CD-ROM drive
1 IDE HDD added post-OS-install, containing a single partition
1 new SATA drive (right out of the box)**

I recognize these devices and think I know what they are:
/dev/hda - CD ROM
/dev/hdc - IDE HDD
/dev/hdc1 - partition on IDE HDD
/dev/sda - 1st SATA HDD
/dev/sda1,2 - 2 primary partitions on 1st (original) SATA HDD

here's the one I want to be sure I've got right:
/dev/sdb -- the NEW, unformatted SATA HDD
(there is no /dev/sdb1)

The reason I'm a little unsure is that I don't see any references to
/dev/sda in the fstab:

> [root at lab6 ~]# cat /etc/fstab
> # This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
> /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
> LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
> none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
> none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
> none                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
> none                    /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
> /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
> /dev/hdc1               /data                   ext2    defaults        1 2
> /dev/hda                /media/cdrom            auto    pamconsole,fscontext=sys
> tem_u:object_r:removable_t,exec,noauto,managed 0 0
> [root at lab6 ~]#


Am I correct in my understanding that the SATA drives are mapped differently
from the IDE drives - and that /dev/sdb is my shiny new HDD?

Is formatting a SATA drive any different than an IDE drive?

TIA,
C



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Chris Merrill                           |  Web Performance, Inc.
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