Hello Mikkel, On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:00:15 -0600 "Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > wwp wrote: > > Hello there, > > > > > > running a Fedora 8.. since I don't know when, my root partition is > > randomly mounted as /dev/sda3 or /dev/sdc3. This breaks the mount > > possibilities from within Nautilus, as it seems to be a complete mess > > w/ detected devices (or remembered?) devices. > > > > It's a D810 laptop, w/ a SATA disk (usually sda, root sda3 and labelled > > as '/' and swap as SWAP-sda4, sda1 and sda2 being NTFS). When I boot > > the laptop w/ some USB disks connected (labelled storage3 and > > storage4), I'll get random mount sequences. At the beginning the USB > > disks were sdb and sdc and could be mounted w/o problem from Nautilus. > > But I recently reboot and found that this has changed -> root is sdc3 > > and one of the external USB disks is now sda1. > > / and swap partitions are in fstab, storage3 and storage4 aren't. > > > > If that doesn't prevent the system from running fine, from within > > Nautilus, I can't mount the external USB disk anymore, it seems that > > nautilus remember that 'storage3' was 1st partition, but now it tries > > to mount /dev/sda1, and fails w/: NTFS signature missing.. > > > > Any clues how I could get a fixed mounting sequence? Should I force a > > specific device (/dev/sdc1) for the labelled partition 'storage3' for > > instance (and how)? How can it be that the / partition doesn't get the > > 1st /dev/sdX assignment? > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > SCSI drives are listed by order of discovery. (SATA drives are > handled as SCSI drives.) You should not have USB drives discovered > before your SATA drive. It almost sounds like you have the > usb_storage module in your initrd file. You may also want to check > /etc/modprobe.conf fo SCSI controller aliases. I didn't change factory defaults for kernel config and params, modprobe settings or initrd contents, it was working fine until I did some reboots (it worked fine for several reboots, I can't tell if that came from an upgrade or if it's a random behaviour, and I'm not rebooting every day). If this problems shows here, it's potentially everyone else's problem, if it's not BIOS or hardware dependent. > I normally let HAL mount USB drives - it uses the label for the > mount point off the /media directory. It is possible to write HAL > rules that mount specific drives on specific mount points. It is > also possile to write udev rules that will mount the USB drive based > on the partition label, just like your root directory is mounted. > (You need to use the noauto option, so the system does not try to > mount them on boot.) > > This should give you a couple of ways to try and solve the problem, > or at least give someone else an idea on more troubleshooting. Yeah, thanks for the tips. The easy (temporary) workaround I found for my next reboot was to have the USB disks unplugged before GDM shows up (one plug to get off, they're connected to a USB concentrator). I wonder if disabling booting USB devices in the BIOS could help. I'm a bit amazed in fact, and I say this w/o any irony, really. After so many years where I could see that the way external devices and fs are mounted (that started w/ manual fstab handling, then hotplug, udev, hal, mixing with autofs and gnome mount mechanisms (correct me if I forget one), it's like we'll never get an auto-mounting mechanism that is reliable from a Desktop PoV. Maybe it's simply not possible because software can't guess human expectations, but then, maybe a wizard should ask what to do when new device IDs get plugged in (remember it and automount it next time, etc.). Waiting for a smart mount robot, I think I'll look into the the HAL rules direction! Regards, -- wwp
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