Script Mod Needed

ok, i am not a bash script person at all, this should be simple but i am at a loss

I have a expander attached, so some of my drive devices are 4 characters long, 5 with partition number added

need to know how to modify the following code:

load_drives()
{
    ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ | egrep 'ata\-' > ${TMPFILE}

    # rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 Apr 20 08:04 ata-Hitachi_HTS722020K9SA00_071007DP0400DTG101HA -> ../../sdf
    # lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 20 08:04 ata-Hitachi_HTS722020K9SA00_071007DP0400DTG101HA-part1 -> ../../sdf1
    # I know it's inefficient.
    # but piping mount into loop creates a subprocess
    # whereby the export inside the loop never gets
    # back to the parent.

    i=0
    while read PERMS LINKS OWNER GROUP XX MONTH DD HHMM MODEL LINKER DEV
    do
        # ${parameter:offset:length}
        NAME=${DEV:6:4}                 # Save Whole Drive
        DEV=${DEV:6:3}
        # Remove Partition #
        if [ ${DEV} != ${NAME} ]; then continue; fi
        for OMODEL in ${OMIT_MODELS[*]}
        do  length=${#OMODEL}
            if [ ${MODEL:0:$length} = ${OMODEL} ];then OMIT=1;fi
        done
        if [ ${OMIT:=0} -gt 0 ]
           then OMIT=0
                continue
        fi
        DRIVES[$i]="/dev/${DEV}"
        MODELS[$i]="${MODEL}"
        CHOICE[$i]="/dev/${DEV} ${MODEL}"
        ((i++))
    done  < ${TMPFILE}

    rm -f ${TMPFILE}

}

in the NAME and DEV i changed the length to 5 and 4, but that still gives me listing with the partition number

any assistance?

thanks

Myk

tmpfile