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 1MEmGp-0004cI-O1 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:51 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 38B2BE046D; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1234CE046D for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A191F64A64 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:49 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.702 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.702 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-1.103, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id d2FO6YydIeMx for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96F3064AEB for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1MEmGY-0004DY-8O for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:34 +0000 Received: from adsl-69-234-202-135.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net ([69.234.202.135]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:34 +0000 Received: from w41ter by adsl-69-234-202-135.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:34 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: walt Subject: [gentoo-user] [OT] ESATA drive changes the root device -- how to deal with it? Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:32:18 -0700 Message-ID: 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; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: adsl-69-234-202-135.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net User-Agent: Thunderbird/3.0a2pre (X11; 2009061105) Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: b8fb4248-9533-4435-b3d8-8c3105febb50 X-Archives-Hash: 9557738ffc3e3991ad85185c91e45109 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.