How do I keep sda from changing its name to sdb?
 

Is there a kernel option to hard code a harddrive onto a specific device name? I am using a 2.6 kernel with udev. Thank you!

udev rules

http://reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Customizing_UDEV

http://wiki.debian.org/udev

These posts are about Hard drive rules..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rd+drive+rules

Cool. Thank you. But will this have any effect on the order GRUB finds the hard drives and the "real_root" parameter?

You may want to look into defining drives by UUID instead of device name, the UUID never changes.

I know it is an Arch tutorial, but I don't see anything specific to Arch in there, the same principles should apply to Gentoo.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/..._device_naming