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NAME

       sd - Driver for SCSI Disk Drives

SYNOPSIS

       #include <linux/hdreg.h>        /* for HDIO_GETGEO */
       #include <linux/fs.h>           /* for BLKGETSIZE and BLKRRPART */

CONFIGURATION

       The block device name has the following form: sdlp, where l is a letter
       denoting the physical drive, and p is a number denoting  the  partition
       on  that  physical drive.  Often, the partition number, p, will be left
       off when the device corresponds to the whole drive.

       SCSI disks have a major device number of 8, and a minor  device  number
       of  the form (16 * drive_number) + partition_number, where drive_number
       is the number  of  the  physical  drive  in  order  of  detection,  and
       partition_number is as follows:

       partition 0 is the whole drive
       partitions 1-4 are the DOS "primary" partitions
       partitions 5-8 are the DOS "extended" (or "logical") partitions

       For example, /dev/sda will have major 8, minor 0, and will refer to all
       of the first SCSI drive in the system; and /dev/sdb3 will have major 8,
       minor  19,  and  will refer to the third DOS "primary" partition on the
       second SCSI drive in the system.

       At this time, only block devices are provided.  Raw  devices  have  not
       yet been implemented.

DESCRIPTION

       The following ioctls are provided:

       HDIO_GETGEO
              Returns the BIOS disk parameters in the following structure:

                  struct hd_geometry {
                      unsigned char  heads;
                      unsigned char  sectors;
                      unsigned short cylinders;
                      unsigned long  start;
                  };

              A pointer to this structure is passed as the ioctl(2) parameter.

              The information returned in the parameter is the  disk  geometry
              of  the  drive  as  understood by DOS!  This geometry is not the
              physical geometry of the drive.  It is  used  when  constructing
              the   drive’s  partition  table,  however,  and  is  needed  for
              convenient operation of fdisk(1), efdisk(1),  and  lilo(1).   If
              the geometry information is not available, zero will be returned
              for all of the parameters.

       BLKGETSIZE
              Returns the device size  in  sectors.   The  ioctl(2)  parameter
              should be a pointer to a long.

       BLKRRPART
              Forces a reread of the SCSI disk partition tables.  No parameter
              is needed.

              The scsi(4) ioctl(2) operations  are  also  supported.   If  the
              ioctl(2)  parameter  is  required, and it is NULL, then ioctl(2)
              will fail with the error EINVAL.

FILES

       /dev/sd[a-h]: the whole device
       /dev/sd[a-h][0-8]: individual block partitions

COLOPHON

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