From: nomail on
On 06/05/2010 06:26 AM, Jasen Betts wrote:
> On 2010-06-05, nomail@_INVALID_no.org <nomail@_INVALID_no.org> wrote:
>> On 06/04/2010 09:36 PM, unruh wrote:
>
>> 1 - 2tb
>> 2 - 320gb
>> 3 - 500gb
>> 4 - 2tb
>>
>> So I booted the installation DVD (Suse-11.2-32bit) and faked my way in
>> to disk partitioning to see the offerings. That's where the numbering
>> really got messed up (that was a good idea to check with an install DVD)!
>>
>> 1 500gb /dev/sda
>> 2 2tb /dev/sdb
>> 3 2tb /dev/sdg
>> 4 320gb /dev/sdh
>>
>> I didn't verify this but I'm sure that with only 2 disks the first two
>> from the first list would be sda & sdb.
>>
>> So if any of this is in effect when I boot disk-1 (sda) on which the
>> partition to boot is, somewhere along the boot it starts looking at the
>> 500gb disk-3 instead. Now I'm even more screwed up.
>>
>> The boot loader is grub-legacy. It works with (hd0,X) for sda so the
>> initially the boot's good. But when it gets to check the fstab saying
>> /dev/sda THEN somehow it goes for a dump and disk-3.
>
> grub is great until you hit a circumstance where the BIOS and the
> kernel disagree on the drive order numbering,
>
> labeling the root partition drive and useing the label to mount
> it is part of the solution. some other trick is needed to get
> the boot sector written to the right place, but I forget what.

Grub deals in terms of hd0, hd1, hd2, hd3. Breaking into grub with "c"
and doing the "root (hdx,y)" command also shows how grub sees the drives
and partitions. I booted a grub floppy with 4 drives plugged in and can
confirm that on this board grub sees them all exactly and correctly in
sequence same as bios does.

The one surprise here was that the top 40gb #15 partition on my 2tb
drive is too high for bios and for grub. But this is not it because the
problem is still there without 2tb disks. The sequencing problem doesn't
surface until the kernel takes over ........from what I can see. But Why
only with more than 2 disks?

Just looking at the sequence shown in the earlier install episode it
strikes me that sda-sdb ........sdg-sdh has a 4 disk gap in addition to
a wrong sequence. Could this be some sort of reserve for the PATA
hdx-hdy set? I have no more pata drives but still need one ribbon for
the DVD burner.

From: nomail on
On 06/05/2010 12:47 AM, Dr. Deb wrote:
> nomail@_INVALID_no.org wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I finally got me a 3rd sata drive but now I can't use all 3 of them at
>> once. I never used more than 2 before and they were permanently
>> connected as sata-1 & sata-2. Only one drive is bootable, the others are
>> just data storage. I got an iStore 5-disk raid rail to act as a multiple
>> mobile tray dock, no problems with it that I could see (no raid is used).
>>
>> The board is "asus a8n-e" and it has 4 sata connectors. The bios sees
>> all 3 sata drives as sata master 1, sata master 2 & sata master 3. All
>> fstab files use disk by device name (/dev/sda etc.) out of necessity.
>>
>> Everything works so long as I have no more than 2 drives plugged in,
>> same as before: 1 has to be in position 1 and the other (if used) in
>> position 2. All other setups lead to failed boots.
>>
>>
>> If there is a 3rd drive plugged in
>>
>> "Waiting for device /dev/sdX to appear: could not find device /dev/sdX
>> Want me to fall back to /dev/sdY? (Y/n)"
>>
>>
>> If any 2nd drive is not in position-2:
>>
>> "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"
>>
>> Any hints would be appreciated. I tried to disable all IDE (pata)
>> features in bios but it doesn't seem to make any difference :-(
>>
>> How can get up to 4 sata drives connected at once?
>
>
> I really hate to say this, but you may have a problem with your partition
> information. I had a similar problem a little while back and the only cure
> was to reformat.
>
> FWIW
>
> Deb

Thanks, d'you mean the boot drive or one or more of the others?

Doesn't the kernel load the partition tables on boot from bios?

The prob seems to revolve around disk id more than partitioning.



From: Pascal Hambourg on
Hello,

nomail@_INVALID_no.org a �crit :
>>>
>>> If there is a 3rd drive plugged in
>>>
>>> "Waiting for device /dev/sdX to appear: could not find device /dev/sdX
>>> Want me to fall back to /dev/sdY? (Y/n)"
>>>
>>> If any 2nd drive is not in position-2:
>>>
>>> "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"
>>>
>>> Any hints would be appreciated. I tried to disable all IDE (pata)
>>> features in bios but it doesn't seem to make any difference :-(

I suspect udev messed up again when something changed.
How is the root= defined in /boot/grub/menu.lst ?
Anything about sd* in the kernel log (can you drop a shell and run dmesg
in the initramfs) ?

> Doesn't the kernel load the partition tables on boot from bios?

No. It loads them itself. The BIOS does not know anything about partitions.
From: J.O. Aho on
nomail@_INVALID_no.org wrote:
> On 06/05/2010 06:26 AM, Jasen Betts wrote:
>> On 2010-06-05, nomail@_INVALID_no.org <nomail@_INVALID_no.org> wrote:
>>> On 06/04/2010 09:36 PM, unruh wrote:
>>
>>> 1 - 2tb
>>> 2 - 320gb
>>> 3 - 500gb
>>> 4 - 2tb
>>>
>>> So I booted the installation DVD (Suse-11.2-32bit) and faked my way in
>>> to disk partitioning to see the offerings. That's where the numbering
>>> really got messed up (that was a good idea to check with an install DVD)!
>>>
>>> 1 500gb /dev/sda
>>> 2 2tb /dev/sdb
>>> 3 2tb /dev/sdg
>>> 4 320gb /dev/sdh
>>>
>>> I didn't verify this but I'm sure that with only 2 disks the first two
>>> from the first list would be sda & sdb.
>>>
>>> So if any of this is in effect when I boot disk-1 (sda) on which the
>>> partition to boot is, somewhere along the boot it starts looking at the
>>> 500gb disk-3 instead. Now I'm even more screwed up.
>>>
>>> The boot loader is grub-legacy. It works with (hd0,X) for sda so the
>>> initially the boot's good. But when it gets to check the fstab saying
>>> /dev/sda THEN somehow it goes for a dump and disk-3.
>>
>> grub is great until you hit a circumstance where the BIOS and the
>> kernel disagree on the drive order numbering,
>>
>> labeling the root partition drive and useing the label to mount
>> it is part of the solution. some other trick is needed to get
>> the boot sector written to the right place, but I forget what.
>
> Grub deals in terms of hd0, hd1, hd2, hd3. Breaking into grub with "c"
> and doing the "root (hdx,y)" command also shows how grub sees the drives
> and partitions. I booted a grub floppy with 4 drives plugged in and can
> confirm that on this board grub sees them all exactly and correctly in
> sequence same as bios does.

The mapping is done in /boot/grub/device.map and may lack mapping for those
two later hard drives.


> The one surprise here was that the top 40gb #15 partition on my 2tb
> drive is too high for bios and for grub.

Think there was some kind of limitation on the number of partitions in 0.9x
Grub (but I may mistaken).


> But this is not it because the
> problem is still there without 2tb disks. The sequencing problem doesn't
> surface until the kernel takes over ........from what I can see. But Why
> only with more than 2 disks?

This can happen if you use LABEL or UUID and more than one disk/partition has
the same "name", which makes it a bit random which one will get which get
which device name. Another thing that could make disks to "switch" order is
"spin up time", if your hard drive is damaged and your kernel don't use the
data from BIOS, then it can take longer for it to say "Hi" and therefore will
get a higher device name.


> Just looking at the sequence shown in the earlier install episode it
> strikes me that sda-sdb ........sdg-sdh has a 4 disk gap in addition to
> a wrong sequence.

Can much be some odd udev rule, check that you don't have an odd persistent
udev rule or persistent-cd rule which has already used up the sdc - sdf.
Another reason can be that your motherboard has 4 SATA and 2 SATA-RAID, where
the pots for the SATA gets sda - sdd, while those connected to the SATA-RAID
will get sde-sdh.


> Could this be some sort of reserve for the PATA
> hdx-hdy set?

No, either they are detected as hdX or with newer drivers they also may be
detected as "scsi" devices and get sdX in a similar way as a SATA drive.


> I have no more pata drives but still need one ribbon for
> the DVD burner.

Do a "ls -l /dev/cdrom" to see which device it really uses or check the
persistent-cd rule.


I would guess your two older hard drives are connected to the SATA-RAID ports
and not on SATA1 and SATA2 as they should have.

--

//Aho
From: Dr. Deb on


I was talking about the HD you boot off of.

Deb





nomail@_INVALID_no.org wrote:

> On 06/05/2010 12:47 AM, Dr. Deb wrote:
>> nomail@_INVALID_no.org wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I finally got me a 3rd sata drive but now I can't use all 3 of them at
>>> once. I never used more than 2 before and they were permanently
>>> connected as sata-1 & sata-2. Only one drive is bootable, the others are
>>> just data storage. I got an iStore 5-disk raid rail to act as a multiple
>>> mobile tray dock, no problems with it that I could see (no raid is
>>> used).
>>>
>>> The board is "asus a8n-e" and it has 4 sata connectors. The bios sees
>>> all 3 sata drives as sata master 1, sata master 2 & sata master 3. All
>>> fstab files use disk by device name (/dev/sda etc.) out of necessity.
>>>
>>> Everything works so long as I have no more than 2 drives plugged in,
>>> same as before: 1 has to be in position 1 and the other (if used) in
>>> position 2. All other setups lead to failed boots.
>>>
>>>
>>> If there is a 3rd drive plugged in
>>>
>>> "Waiting for device /dev/sdX to appear: could not find device /dev/sdX
>>> Want me to fall back to /dev/sdY? (Y/n)"
>>>
>>>
>>> If any 2nd drive is not in position-2:
>>>
>>> "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"
>>>
>>> Any hints would be appreciated. I tried to disable all IDE (pata)
>>> features in bios but it doesn't seem to make any difference :-(
>>>
>>> How can get up to 4 sata drives connected at once?
>>
>>
>> I really hate to say this, but you may have a problem with your partition
>> information. I had a similar problem a little while back and the only
>> cure was to reformat.
>>
>> FWIW
>>
>> Deb
>
> Thanks, d'you mean the boot drive or one or more of the others?
>
> Doesn't the kernel load the partition tables on boot from bios?
>
> The prob seems to revolve around disk id more than partitioning.