While getting rid of files I somehow changed my /dev/sdb Seagate external hard drive to /dev/sdg.
How do I get it back to being /dev/sdb again? Thanks!!

If you are using the device as plug-and-play with a dynamically assigned mountpoint, it is possible for the drive designation to change depending on what other devices are present and the order in which they are detected.

The best way to make sure it is always mounted the same way is to identify it in /etc/fstab by the UUID. It will no longer be /dev/sdb; instead it will be UUID=[some long number], but you can make sure it always mounts the the same mountpoint.

This article gives a very nice explanation of how to do that; it's the one that I used the first time I tried using UUIDs in my /etc/fstab.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-f...-update-fstab/

i've been wondering this myself many times (i had it rather with partitions: sda1, from there straight to sda7 and so on...).
once i bothered to dig into it, but it's almost impossible to change it.
something very close to the base system is assigning these in a non-configurable way (i know this is technically unprecise at best).

frankbell's advice is good, i'm not contradicting it.

You have to re-boot the system. Every-time you plug it in it will get another name.