We have run CENTOS 3.x on a large number of machines used for technical computations, both 32/64-bit servers and 32-bit dual-boot desktops, with no issues whatsoever over a long period of time. We have since upgraded the servers to CENTOS 4.4 but a small number of dual-boot desktops which have been created recently using CENTOS 4.4/XP have very rapidly started to exhibit this symptom:
The dual-booting (GRUB is the 1Y bootloader) works OK for a while but then on a subsequent reboot from Windows to CENTOS, the boot halts in GRUB with an error message that mkdevlabel could not see label "/1" i.e. the root partition. The fix we adopted was to convert the LABEL references in grub.conf and /etc/fstab to use the "traditional" real device names not the symbolic links pointed to by the LABELs. I do not think that there is any option in the installer to avoid using device labels for partitions ?
Trawling on Google shows others have seen similar issues with other distros based on RHEL4 - has anyone seen this with CENTOS, know why it happens and if it can be avoided? Certainly, fixing it is tedious as you have to boot from CD, then replace the two affected files above, so any suggestion that avoids this issue would be much appreciated before we attempt to migrate our desktops to CENTOS 4.4
FYI the PCs concerned have Intel 945 motherboards and SATA drives.
Les Oswald