Question about external SCSI/RAID and device "numbers"

[TexasMike]

Hello all,
I have Ultimate Edition 1.7 newly installed. This system also has an external drive array (SUN D1000 12 36GB drives) which is connected via a SYMBIOS SYM53c875 SCSI ultra-wide controller (array is NOT connected at this time due to a couple of minor probs with the install of Ultimate Edition 1.7 regarding the GUI File Browser). In the past, this array has caused me some "mental" problems when I reattach the drives and re-assemble the array (RAID 5 array - 10 drives in array + 2 spares), by "displacing" my internal drive device "numbering" and moving the drive designations "down the tree." For instance: my 3 internal SATA drives are /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd (/dev/sda seems to always be taken over by my internal IDE ZIP drive), which will become /dev/sdn /dev/sdo /dev/sdp when I re-assemble the array with mdadm. Actually, they are changed when the array is powered on and the system is booted, it doesn't matter if I have yet performed the re-assembly of the array. Now this does not seem to be too much problem, most of the time. However, it is somewhat confusing in my "multi-boot" environment, where I have bootable partitions for XP, Ultimate Edition 1.6, Ultimate Edition 1.4 Gamer's Edition and Vista.
My question is: Is there a method, setting, procedure that could keep the drives in the array from "taking over" my /dev/xxx drive numbering scheme and changing it as indicated above? Could this be a BIOS setting on the MB?

Any thoughts.....??

Regards...
TexasMike

[LeadFingers]

Is your Bios set to automatically detect your drives?
If so set it to "user" or "Manual" or something like that,
Where it looks for a specific drive in a specific place.

Remember most mother boards only boot from Sata1 or Sata3 (and IDE of course)
So don't set a bootable harddrive or your CD/DVD in the Sata2 or Sata4 slot
And expect them to boot.

While I don't see how "Bios Assign IRQ" could have anything to do with your drive assignment,
stranger things have happened, and it's easy to reverse if no joy.

I also don't see how it would be any benefit to you, but you can change the drive order in Windows.
(if it's a quick process, you didn't do it properly,
and they prolly need to be indexed under their NEW drive position)

If you get it figured out, please do tell.