Re: Debian changes active partition?

[Randy Kramer <rhkramer@gmail.com>]

On Friday 08 July 2011 10:30:49 am Mahesh T Pai wrote:
> "nikhil jain" <nik.jain@gmail.com> writes:
>  > How can I know the /dev/sdaX address of the / partition of debian?
>
> You were asked by the installer to to select the partitions and their
> mountpoint(s) a few minutes before you were asked about installing
> Grub.

Although I assume there is some sort of default there that doesn't 
require him to enter anything. (?)

Anyway, I was just going to point out (somewhat similarly) that at some 
point--oh, never mind--I always manually partition my disk before doing 
an install, then I know the /dev/sdaN number, as:
   * the third letter (a in sda) represents the first disk installed in 
the system--that is, in old IDE terms, the master disk on the primary 
disk controller, then b is the second disk on the primary disk 
controller
   * the number (N) in sdaN sort of represents the partitions in the 
order created, except for a few exceptions--if you create an extended 
partition, then sda4 "holds" the extended partition.  And, if you don't 
create 3 primary partitions, I think some numbers might get 
skipped--otherwise, 1 is the first primary partition, 2 is the 
second, ..., 4 is the extended, 5 is the first (usable) extended 
partition, ...

Randy Kramer