I am installing Ubuntu on my laptop that has 500GB HDD and a 32GB mSATA SSD. The mSATA is always recognized as sdb
and cant change it to sda
. Tried to change my BIOS boot order to the secondary drive first. Is it okay to install Ubuntu on sdb
?
1 Answer
There is no problem about where you install Ubuntu, always keeping in mind don't deleting anything and doing a backup of your important files, just in case. Lets see my case:
$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 13.7 GB, 13701316608 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1665 cylinders, total 26760384 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8e48c4c5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2104515 26748224 12321855 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 63 2104514 1052226 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 223629311 111814624+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 225724416 336437306 55356445+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 223629312 225724415 1047552 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb4 336439294 390721535 27141121 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 336439296 338391039 975872 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 338393088 339390463 498688 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7 339392512 368687103 14647296 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8 368689152 390721535 11016192 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Please ignore any pettiness here.
As you can see, I have another disk installed, but mine is an IDE, and for some weird reason it got first that my SATA disk. This is because of how the Motherboard organizes the BUSes:
$ lspci | grep IDE
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FW (ICH6/ICH6W) SATA Controller (rev 03)
Here,we can see that my IDEs devices are first in the BUS in the motherboard, hence whenever I install a device using the IDE bus, it supersede my SATA device.
In conclusion
There is no problem if your drive is sda, sdb, sdz. In fact, Ubuntu don't use those identifiers since they can change with addition/removing of drives, but use a UUID, which in plain words is a Unique Identifier for the partition/drive.