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stabwound

Member

Registered: 2015-07-24

Posts: 48

Grub booting - "Waiting 10 seconds for device" intermittently

I've recently been running into a problem. This is a desktop that worked fine, and was in storage for 2 years until now.

When I try to boot my system, there's about a 50% chance I'll get the error message "Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sda6" and it will fail, booting me to the rescue shell. If I reboot, there will be another 50% chance it works. I repeat until it eventually works.

/dev/sda6 is my root partition

I did a S.M.A.R.T. test and all was fine.

Also weirdly enough, if I plug a usb flash drive into the computer, the bluetooth mouse will cease to function properly, not sure if related.

If this helps anything, I dual boot WIndows 10 and frequently it locks up where I can move the mouse cursor freely, but nothing responds at all for 30-60 seconds.

Any clues?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,657

Re: Grub booting - "Waiting 10 seconds for device" intermittently

Any other devices like an USB stick or similar? Either way, /dev/sdX are not stable identifiers, you should be using persistent identifiers

stabwound

Member

Registered: 2015-07-24

Posts: 48

Re: Grub booting - "Waiting 10 seconds for device" intermittently

There is a portable USB harddrive attached as well, yes. You think that could have something to do with it? And thanks for the tip.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,657

Re: Grub booting - "Waiting 10 seconds for device" intermittently

Yes, as mentioned in the article I linked, the order in which devices are enumerated is essentially random (but likely faster than if it would be done in the same order and sequentially all the time). So on one boot your usb disk could be /dev/sda and your main disk /dev/sdb and on the next the reverse that your main disk is /dev/sda and your usb /dev/sdb which is what you are seeing, if you hardcode that device path in fstab it leads to the 50/50 gamble, which using persistent identifiers prevents.

Last edited by V1del (2018-12-12 08:52:28)