[PLUG] UUID

Wayne E. Van Loon Sr. wevl at pacifier.com
Wed Aug 18 02:56:49 UTC 2010


Bill Barry wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 7:05 AM, Wayne E. Van Loon Sr. <wevl at pacifier.com>wrote:
>
>   
>> Andreas Turriff wrote:
>>     
>>>   Teach your distribution to identify the root file system by UUID,
>>> rather than by /dev filename.
>>>
>>>       
>> Is that the problem with not-so-open SuSE?
>>
>> We wanted to use SuSE for some control systems but were unable to make a
>> replacement disk on a computer back at the office and get it to boot
>> when it got to the field (on a computer other than the one the disk was
>> created on).
>> Wayne
>>
>>
>>     
> It sounds more like a problem with the grub configuration. If you take a
> disk out of one computer and put it into another computer then it can appear
> to be a different device on the other machine (what was /dev/sda is now
> /dev/sdc or ...). The more modern GRUBs get around this problem by using
> UUIDs like
> UUID=e0dcbbf3-a4fa-4e94-9ec0-c0466aa6fb9d
>  to identify the disk instead of device descriptions like /dev/sda.   Does
> the grub on your replacement disk use UUIDs?
>   
Maybe you can tell me. After a SuSE screen to choose what mode to boot,
Open SuSE 11.1
Open SuSE 11.1 (Failsafe) etc...

it starts booting, switches to a screen with a "progress bar". The 
progress bar is stuck on the left side and after a couple seconds, a 
console type black and white screen appears with the last lines reading:

Could not find /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD800JB-00JJC0_WD-WMAM9CUM7063-part2.
Want me to fall back to /dev/sda2? (Y/n)

Obviously it found the disk, the only disk on the machines in both 
cases, and loaded some sort of boot menu. Why it could (would) not find 
(mount) the / partition seems to me to be the result of some sort of 
over complication. I have been using Linux since 1995 and OpenSuSE 11.1 
is the first distribution I have encountered that would only boot on the 
machine it was originally installed on.

Don't spend a lot of time on this, we went back to our original 
distribution and are happy. But I am curious, is this an example of UUID?
> Also, when you test the replacement disk at the office is it the only one in
> the machine?
Yes.

Thanks,
Wayne




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