[gentoo-user] Inconsistent mountpoint for /

[<lngndvs@gmail.com>]

I recently reported that I am suffering random reboots.  I have now
discovered an inconsistency in the reporting of the mount point of the
root directory of my Gentoo install.  First a little history:

I spent about two and a half weeks trying to install ANYTHING that
would remain stable and useable.  Finally Gentoo is running well.
Repeatedly, I was unable to understand how grub was installing the
MBR, or where.  I had three SATA drives and one ATA drive, and I
removed the ATA drive to get rid of the problem  of naming of drives
inconsistently.  So far so good; however, the SATA drives are booted
in order that they are named in the BIOS, so I wasn't certain which
drive the MBR was being installed on.

Leaving out many details...  Just when I was about to give up, I
discovered that if I changed the boot order, a different grub
appeared.  One from Gentoo and one from Ubuntu.  After a pitched
battle, I was finally able to settle on Gentoo, and it's running
pretty well.  Except for random reboots.  

I just noticed that the return from # df is as follows, without any
specific drive: designation appearing for / :

   spineless ulod # df
   Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
   rootfs               105392960  19272948  80766360  20% /
   /dev/root            105392960  19272948  80766360  20% /
   rc-svcdir                 1024        76       948   8% /lib64/rc/init.d
   udev                     10240       212     10028   3% /dev
   shm                    1027568         0   1027568   0% /dev/shm
   /dev/sdb6             62144164  45189664  13797732  77% /home

After some investigation,  I found the following inconsistent
indentification of the / directory's physical location:

   |                            | / partition              |
   | where represented          | 500GB HDD represented as |
   |----------------------------+--------------------------|
   | /boot/grub.conf "root"     | (hd1,0)                   |
   | /boot/grub.con kernel line | root=/dev/sda5           |
   | /etc/fstab                 | /devsdb5/                |
   | /etc/mtab                  | /dev/root                |
   | sfdisk -l                  | /dev/sda5                |
   | /df                        | /dev/root                |
   |                            |                          |


In grub, it is located first  as hd1 (/dev/sdb) and then as
/dev/sda5.  That is where I want it to be.   This is necessary
apparently  because grub would see it on /dev/sdb at first, but once
the kernel boots, the drive would physically be /dev/sda.

The  identifation of this partition in /etc/fstab as /dev/sdb5, is
apparently not being honored?  I'm asking, because I am not well
versed in the events in the boot order.  

df then reports it as /dev/root, ignoring the device id.  The
partition is seen by sfdisk as /dev/sda5, as it also is by gparted.

So, am I safe to rename this partition in /etc/fstab as /dev/sda5?

Secondly, would this help explain random reboots?

I now plan to simplify the arrangement, and reorganize all of the
active partitions on a single drive.  That's another story.

Thank you,

Alan