[CentOS] install detecting disk as sdb not sda

Fri Feb 3 21:01:53 UTC 2012
Ross Walker <rswwalker at gmail.com>

On Feb 3, 2012, at 1:34 PM, wwp <subscript at free.fr> wrote:

> Hello Jerry,
> 
> 
> On Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:24:14 -0500 Jerry Geis <geisj at pagestation.com> wrote:
> 
>> I am trying to install 6.2 on a machine.
>> I am using PXE as I have done so a number of times.
>> 
>> My hard disk is being detected as sdb and not sda.
>> My kickstart config is wanting it at sda.
>> 
>> There are no other disks in the unit. It has and SD slot and an esata
>> although BIOS does not appear to have a disable for either of those devices.
>> 
>> Is there anyway to "force" the disk to sda ?
>> or find out what its detecting at sda and disable that from the PXE boot 
>> line?
>> 
>> Doing " dmesg | grep sda" does say SCSI removable disk.
>> 
>> So how can I tell linux to NOT include that when installing?
> 
> I noticed that behaviour with my CentOS6 (installed and kept up-to-date
> using yum). This happened since kernel kernel-2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64 and
> furthers updates. Was working as expected (my laptop's hdd mounted as
> sda) with previous kernels, up to kernel-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64.
> 
> I wonder if that behaviour, and the *change* of behaviour is an issue
> that should be reported, and how to handle it on installed systems!
> For now, I'm either booting w/ no USB disk plugged, or booting
> a 2.6.32-131 kernel.

You can try disabling USB disk support in the bios.

-Ross