[CentOS] Boot disk changes from /dev/sda during install to /dev/sdb on first boot

Thu May 1 05:21:04 UTC 2008
Jeff Larsen <jlar310 at gmail.com>

CentOS 4.6 x86_64, Dell PE2950 with DRAC5, onboard SAS RAID 1, 2 arrays.

After booting installed system, /dev/sda exists but does not appear to
be a hard disk. fdisk -l displays nothing for sda. CentOS is on
/dev/sdb and the second RAID 1 array is now /dev/sdc.

It's been suggested (in the Dell Linux mailing list) that it is
related to the virtual CD device of the DRAC. But why would it change
after install? Is it perhaps a difference in drivers that are
available in the installer vs. the live kernel?

How can I find out what /dev/sda is? Any way to force the drive order
from the CentOS side? No relevant options that I have found in BIOS or
RAID setup.

bash-3.00# ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8,  0 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sda
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8, 16 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sdb
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8, 17 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sdb1
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8, 18 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sdb2
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8, 19 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sdb3
brw-rw----  1 root disk 8, 32 Apr 29 05:15 /dev/sdc

/dev/cdrom points at /dev/hda

mount /dev/sda /mnt yeilds 'No medium found'

When virtual CD media is connected via DRAC, it is found at
/dev/cdrom1 which links to /dev/scd0

-- 
Jeff