/dev/hda

In Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and some BSD derivatives, /dev/hda is the path to the block device node of the first IDE device (master device attached at the primary IDE-controller). This first device is most commonly a hard disk drive, but is commonly an optical disc drive on new PCs with Serial ATA hard disk drives. This is because Linux, in the most common configuration, uses SCSI block device nodes for Serial ATA devices. Subsequent IDE devices are named /dev/hdb (slave device attached at the primary IDE-controller), /dev/hdc (master device attached at the secondary IDE-controller), and so forth. The primary partitions and optional extended partition are named /dev/hda1 through /dev/hda4, while any logical partitions are named /dev/hda5 and onwards (even if their parent extended partition is not the fourth partition on the disk).

On Linux, /dev/hda is usually identified by major number 3 and minor number 0.

This path name is not portable to most non-Linux versions of Unix Systems, so portable programs or scripts should not depend upon it.

External links

* [http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PartitionsVsDrives Partitions vs. Drives]