Installation problem

[Garrett Cooper]

Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, illoai at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On 30/07/07, Rakhesh Sasidharan <rakhesh at rakhesh.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007, Terrence Wilson wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm trying to install FreeBSD as part of a dual boot config on a hard
>>>> disk which already contains Windows XP. I have created a partition for
>>>> FreeBSD. My problem comes once I "commit" to the installation of
>>>> FreeBSD. I get the following message, after which installation aborts:
>>>> "Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s2b in /dev! The creation of
>>>> filesystems will be aborted." What am I doing wrong?
>>>
>>> Are you trying to install FreeBSD in an extended partition? The
>>> /dev/ad*4*s2b makes me think so ...
>>
>> /dev/ad4 is probably his first SATA drive, the integer
>> following "s" is the slice number (partition in the magical
>> windows world) and if greater than 4 indicates an extended
>> slice.
>
> I thought /dev/ad4s2b meant the 5th disk (since its ad4; ad0-ad3 being 
> 1st to 4th disks), 2nd slice (s2), and second partition in that slice 
> (b). Do SATA drives too come up as "ad" devices? I don't have 
> experience with SATA drives, so don't know ... I know my IDE drives 
> come up as "ad" and so would assume SATA will come up with a different 
> name.
>
> Regards,
> Rakhesh

Rakhesh is correct.

    SATA / PATA drives show up under ad[m]s[n][l], where m is the disk 
number (zero based), n is the slice, aka partition number in the non-BSD 
(/Solaris?) world, number (zero based), and l is the respective letter 
for the partition (it can vary depending on the purpose, a being root, b 
slice, c all of the disk, [d-j?], other values / relevances.
    SCSI / SAS is almost exactly the same. The only difference is 'ad' 
is replace with 'da'.
-Garrett