From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MEmLG-0005F7-6v for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:37:26 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5E6B3E04A8; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:37:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ew0-f213.google.com (mail-ew0-f213.google.com [209.85.219.213]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20804E04A8 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:37:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy9 with SMTP id 9so1669602ewy.34 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:37:22 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=JDSJ7nQQLBHyedl9levr9YaKvUkoKAgJTgJapw84DH8=; b=Ho8x4FPAKqbexO0cwr2bVVVru5tLF86z9NIcv3XOWyH+BA48UQDGm+FGk9ok2z8p0B +U8v35lSB88VtexGw6W5wyS1B5XclsIPVKfFOHbaGwkITIKimMGau6waiPWJvBoehFzB 2R2YOxPJLLRUwV5hsHOZW6EZGdMLHVycxV2ZI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=Aq6mwoGa2Iu7TJuxt1bUNxlwzFlUXY/U2LH1m1mKFMNjhxpylOFYdvW9MxtewiGv9U 6EdiZr/lMnxBgyv7xPzpgbDsbFhgJ770cdpWqyPr8lmu6Za5LtZ5+9FtFjaCEq+5gs+W 3DyUgQnNjXP3gIysHiBvQ8EWwQWc6GD0z2gFg= Received: by 10.210.18.8 with SMTP id 8mr5773434ebr.54.1244734642532; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:37:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from energy.localnet (energy.heim10.tu-clausthal.de [139.174.197.94]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 11sm298540ewy.2.2009.06.11.08.37.21 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:37:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Volker Armin Hemmann To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] ESATA drive changes the root device -- how to deal with it? Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:37:15 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.11.90 (Linux/2.6.29.4r4; KDE/4.2.90; x86_64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200906111737.15573.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 1f220620-c9fe-41cd-9708-7c086e700390 X-Archives-Hash: a57800c6be98443b6ffa32377db8b44b On Donnerstag 11 Juni 2009, walt wrote: > Okay, my root partition is on /dev/sda (normally), which is a sata > drive connected to the onboard sata controller. > > The problem is that I also have a plug-in ESATA docking station, which > is not always powered on. When it *is* powered on, my kernel names the > disk /dev/sda, and that forces the root device to be named /dev/sdb > instead of sda. Crashing ensues during bootup. > > The machine's BIOS doesn't even recognize the ESATA controller, so > I can't fiddle with anything there. > > Anyone have any ideas how to get a kernel to mount the root partition > based on the pci slot number or something equivalent? > > I've tried using a disk label in fstab instead of a device name, but the > problem is that the kernel mounts the wrong partition before it has a > chance to read fstab. > > I've also tried using rdev to set the root device to the disk's major > and minor numbers but that fails because the kernel switches the minor > device numbers along with the device names. > > Any clues would be much appreciated. afaik you can use labels in grub too.