hd(4) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | SEE ALSO

hd(4)                   Kernel Interfaces Manual                   hd(4)

NAME         top

       hd - MFM/IDE hard disk devices

DESCRIPTION         top

       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         top

       /dev/hd*

SEE ALSO         top

       chown(1), mknod(1), sd(4), mount(8)

Linux man-pages (unreleased)     (date)                            hd(4)