hd(4) — Linux manual page
hd(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual hd(4)
NAME
hd - MFM/IDE hard disk devices
DESCRIPTION
The hd* devices are block devices to access MFM/IDE hard disk
drives in raw mode. The master drive on the primary IDE
controller (major device number 3) is hda; the slave drive is
hdb. The master drive of the second controller (major device
number 22) is hdc and the slave is hdd.
General IDE block device names have the form hdX, or hdXP, where
X is a letter denoting the physical drive, and P is a number
denoting the partition on that physical drive. The first form,
hdX, is used to address the whole drive. Partition numbers are
assigned in the order the partitions are discovered, and only
nonempty, nonextended partitions get a number. However,
partition numbers 1–4 are given to the four partitions described
in the MBR (the "primary" partitions), regardless of whether they
are unused or extended. Thus, the first logical partition will
be hdX5. Both DOS-type partitioning and BSD-disklabel
partitioning are supported. You can have at most 63 partitions
on an IDE disk.
For example, /dev/hda refers to all of the first IDE drive in the
system; and /dev/hdb3 refers to the third DOS "primary" partition
on the second one.
They are typically created by:
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda b 3 0
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda1 b 3 1
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda2 b 3 2
...
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda8 b 3 8
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb b 3 64
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb1 b 3 65
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb2 b 3 66
...
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb8 b 3 72
chown root:disk /dev/hd*
FILES
/dev/hd*
SEE ALSO
chown(1), mknod(1), sd(4), mount(8)
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