Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

turbochamp · 2022-05-12 15:01:25

I'm a bit of a noob with mounting drives in /etc/fstab but I thought I had it down. Whenever I reboot the system it usually fails to boot and throws me into maintenance mode because one of my external USB drives failed to mount. So I type in my password, edit the /etc/fstab and comment out the external USB drives and then it boots. Running "sudo fdisk -l" and the assigned USB drive path letter has changed, every single time. If I had it mounted in fstab as "/dev/sdf1", when I reboot it's now "/dev/sdg1". I've also tried using the UID instead of the drive path but it's the same result.

I'm sure I'm doing this wrong, or maybe the drives are mounting too slow. Anyone give me some guidance? Here is how they are mounted in my fstab.

/dev/sdf1                                        /mnt/4TB-Ext    ext4           rw,relatime     0 0
/dev/sdg1                                       /mnt/4TB-Ext2    ext4           rw,relatime     0 0

kokoko3k · 2022-05-12 15:02:10

Use UUIDs, not device names:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab# … stem_UUIDs

Also, nofail may come handy:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab#External_devices

Last edited by kokoko3k (2022-05-12 15:04:00)

turbochamp · 2022-05-12 16:12:08

kokoko3k wrote:

Use UUIDs, not device names:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab# … stem_UUIDs
Also, nofail may come handy:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab#External_devices

I tried UUID's before and it would throw "UUID...not found" but I'll try again and look into the nofail. Thank you.

seth · 2022-05-12 18:21:55

The drives might show up toolate™
Next to UUIDs (really) use "noauto,x-systemd.automount" to have them mounted on access only, not on boot.

kokoko3k · 2022-05-12 21:16:24

Doesn't nofail wait for the drives to show up too?
(still, automount seems a better idea anyway)

Last edited by kokoko3k (2022-05-12 21:18:21)

seth · 2022-05-13 06:15:56

Yes, but you end up stalling the boot (for 90 seconds by default) or (through a tooshort™ timeout) "lose" the mount.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-05-12 15:01:25

Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

#2 2022-05-12 15:02:10

Re: Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

#3 2022-05-12 16:12:08

Re: Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

#4 2022-05-12 18:21:55

Re: Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

#5 2022-05-12 21:16:24

Re: Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

#6 2022-05-13 06:15:56

Re: Rebooting fails to boot because external USB drive letter changing

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