Arch Linux

yossarianuk

Member

Registered: 2007-05-02

Posts: 103

Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

Hi.

I had a similar issue (on a completely different machine) where eth0+eth1 were randomly changed on boot.

I sort of solved that (thanks to this forum)  -  http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90934

My new issue is on my main desktop.

On boot /dev/sda and  /dev/sdc get confused and arch won't boot (as its trying to load from wrong drive).

I'll try and breifly explain my setup

/dev/sda  - my main drive SATA - this has Ubuntu and arch on
/dev/sdb - just files SATA
/dev/sdc - ATA just files.

It seems to confuse sda and sdc (only sometimes)

- this only occured since I added the ATA drive /dev/sdc,

I load arch's grub from Ubuntus grub2

It is only Occasionally occurring, it doesn't seem to effect the Ubuntu install.

Has anyone got any ideas?

Cheers

Last edited by yossarianuk (2010-02-23 20:19:43)

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,223

Website

Re: Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

This is covered in the wiki.

You should map your drives in grub.conf by UUID, not by devicename. This change will not affect Ubuntu or Arch: grub will simply not depend anymore on whatever is assigning letters to your devices to tell which device is the boot-disk.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

And if you don't like UUIDs, you can use labels - also covered in the wiki.

ozar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2005-02-18

Posts: 1,686

Re: Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

Here's what you are looking for in the wiki:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Per … ice_naming

Those problems all went away for me after switching to this.

---

oz

yossarianuk

Member

Registered: 2007-05-02

Posts: 103

Re: Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

Thanks for the amazingly quick responses everybody.

I have always ignored UUID's in the past as I just using /dev/sdx seemed more logical - I change the UUID's to /dev/sdx in Ubuntu also...

I shall look into UUID/labels as this will solve my issue

Thanks

One thing putting me off UUID's it that unless I write down the massive UUID name how do you recover if for example you were at the grub command line.?

It is easy enough to remember a /dev/ or Label name but how do you know what the UUID names are - Or do you have to make a note somewhere.

Cheers

Last edited by yossarianuk (2010-02-23 20:13:55)

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Occasionally arch mixes up /dev/sd(a/c) on boot (solved)

... massive UUID name ...

Precisely the reason I suggested labels.