GRUB + SATA drive mounting messed up

qwasqaws · 12-04-2008, 09:34 AM

Yello, I have 2 IDE drives with XP on both, a SATA for storage and a SATA for linux. I recently put Debian on and I'm having trouble accessing the storage drive.

When I installed it, Debian went onto sdc, but upon booting from that drive I needed to change GRUB to point "root=" to sdb for it to work. Not a problem, but `mount` tells me sdc is mounted on /. sdc is the storage drive.

Pointing ntfsmount to sdc says it's already mounted, and with '-o force' it shows up fine. Mounting sdb1 with `mount` shows that it is the linux partition.

I've no immediate problems with this since I can access everything, but how can it work at all if it's looking on the wrong drive, or thinks it is? I'd like to sort it out in case it causes any problems in the future.

GRUB:

Code:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sdb1 ro 
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686

---

fdisk -l:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 20.4 GB, 20411080704 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa0384428

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2480    19920568+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x49364935

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        9399    75497436   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2            9400        9729     2650725    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5            9400        9729     2650693+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x95d1baf3

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1       30401   244196001    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 39205 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcf35cf35

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1       39204    40144880    7  HPFS/NTFS

---

mount:

Code:

/dev/sdc1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/2 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdc1 on /mnt/1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,user=root)

pixellany · 12-04-2008, 09:48 AM

This is going to take a whole bottle of Excedrin Migraine.....

First, can you confirm that fdisk is correctly showing your four drives (sizes, etc.)? It seems to be saying 1 IDE and 3 SATA, but let's not worry that just yet.

The only thing that come to mind is that a mix of IDE and SATA can get confusing, but that does not explain the discrepancy between the output of "mount" and "fdisk"

I infer that GRUB is on the Linux drive. If so, try disconnecting all the other drive and verifying that the Linux drive by itself behaves rationally. Then reconnect the drives one at a time and see where things go weird.

farslayer · 12-04-2008, 10:44 AM

Time for uuid mappings possibly ?

I see postings that grub (>=0.97-40) can support uuid as well (That version is probably not in etch)

UUID in Grub and fstab and you should be able to nail everything into it's proper place. or at least a lot closer to it..

Code:

set root=(hd0,1)
search --fs-uuid --set 70165487-7f4f-4a6c-9332-07d907b63976
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.25-2-686" {
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-2-686 root=UUID=70165487-7f4f-4a6c-9332-07d907b63976 ro  
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.25-2-686
}
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.25-2-686 (single-user mode)" {
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25-2-686 root=UUID=70165487-7f4f-4a6c-9332-07d907b63976 ro single 
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.25-2-686

Just a thought