Grub4dos Guide - Device Allocation/Numbering

Drives/devices are numbered using the following syntax in Grub4dos -

• (hd0) - first hard disk
• (hd1) - second hard disk
• (hd0,0) - first hard disk, first partition
• (hd0,1) - first hard disk, second partition
• (hd0,2) - first hard disk, third partition
• (hd#,4) - first logical partition (in extended partition) on disk #
• (hd0,4) - first hard disk, first logical partition (in extended partition)
• (hd3,3) - fourth hard disk, fourth partition (if partition type is primary)
• (hd2,5) - third hard disk, second logical partition (in extended partition)
• (fd0) - first floppy disk
• (cd0) - first CDROM

The disk order is determined by the BIOS, however (hd0) would normally be the boot device, even if booting from a slave drive.

(Bootable) External USB flash drives can be booted via Grub4dos if this feature is supported by the BIOS. If the BIOS supports USB devices as HDD type, then the syntax would be in the (hd#) format � e.g. if the system has one local hard disk drive and a USB drive, and the local disk is set to boot before the USB flash drive, then the USB flash drive will be device (hd1), whilst the local disk will be device (hd0).

It is possible to use the find command to search for a (unique) tag file in order to search all available devices and return the allocated device number � see here and here.

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