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Arjann

Member

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2008-09-26

Posts: 21

/dev/sda and /dev/sdb swaps at random on boottime

Hi All,

I'm using kernel26 from testing, so that will be 2.6.32.4-1 and have a strange boot problem with my HDDs:

My first is a SATA WesternDigital raptor on a onboard SATA controller which contains my /, /home and swap.
My second is a ATA Seagate on a onboard ATA controller which contains a xfs partition for storage purposes.

On kernel loading it loads in some cases (which should be the case all the time):

scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD740GD-50FL 33.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM            PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-215D 1.22 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3160212ACE     3.AC PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 145226112 512-byte logical blocks: (74.3 GB/69.2 GiB)
kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 312581808 512-byte logical blocks: (160 GB/149 GiB)

and in other cases:

scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD740GD-50FL 33.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM            PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-215D 1.22 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3160212ACE     3.AC PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sda] 312581808 512-byte logical blocks: (160 GB/149 GiB)
kernel: sd 0:0:0:0: [sdb] 145226112 512-byte logical blocks: (74.3 GB/69.2 GiB)

Since my /dev/disk/by-label/ROOT is linked to /dev/sda1 it tries to boot on the wrong drive occasionally.

Could this be a kernel bug or is it a bios issue??

brisbin33

Member

From: boston, ma

Registered: 2008-07-24

Posts: 1,799

Website

Re: /dev/sda and /dev/sdb swaps at random on boottime

disk/by-label/ROOT should be linked to whatever partition is labeled root, not sure why or how that would get confused.

in any event, in both fstab and menu.lst you should reference your drives by UUID to avoid any confusion or issues.

---

//github/

jdarnold

Member

From: Medford MA USA

Registered: 2009-12-15

Posts: 485

Website

Re: /dev/sda and /dev/sdb swaps at random on boottime

Yes, as brisbin33 says, you should use the disk UUID in both /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab. Use the blkid to get the UUID of the drive and change any /dev/sda? to use that instead. For instance, my /etc/fstab entry is thus:

$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda4: UUID="303889b7-ae78-436f-85ac-da95b2280596" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="71712106-eef9-48c3-840f-20fb77173a9d" TYPE="swap" 
$ cat /etc/fstab
# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0

#/dev/cdrom             /media/cd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd               /media/dvd  auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0               /media/fl   auto    user,noauto             0      0

#/dev/sda4
UUID="303889b7-ae78-436f-85ac-da95b2280596" / ext3 defaults 0 1
#/dev/sda6
UUID="71712106-eef9-48c3-840f-20fb77173a9d" swap swap defaults 0 0

Arjann

Member

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2008-09-26

Posts: 21

Re: /dev/sda and /dev/sdb swaps at random on boottime

Thanks brisbin33 and jdarnold,

my fstab wasn't configured correctly.. my bad