Hello,
This subject was discussed before my subscription,
sorry for without refering message-id.
Taking a glance on the boot procedure of FreeBSD-4.0RC
(now 4.0 release candidate is available via anon-FTP),
FreeBSD's official /boot/loader changes the kernel
parameter vfs.root.mountfrom - it's FreeBSD-specific hook.
GRUB is a generic boot loader, (at present) GRUB specifies
the root device via "legacy code" (FreeBSD calls so).
(Please refer /usr/src/sys/kern/vfs_conf.c. It seems that
the boot procedure is heavily rewritten between 3.x and 4.0)
I suppose, BIOS cannot descriminate ATA and (E)IDE HDD,
so, as far as using "legacy code", there's no way to
specify ATA (or (E)IDE).
By the way, if /boot/loader can specify ATA or (E)IDE,
how it descriminates them? In the source of /boot/loader,
it seems that SCSI and (E)IDE/ATA are descriminated,
but I could not find the procedure to descriminate
(E)IDE and ATA.
suzuki
