[CentOS] Re: CentOS 4.4 - added disk prevents system from booting past initrd

centos-request at centos.org wrote:
...
 > > Thus fsck'ing /dev/sda1 does not bring any useful. But why?
 > >
 > > Why does the initrd insist on fsck'in /dev/sda1, when it should check
 > > LABEL=/?
 > >
 > > Is there something I'm not getting here?

 > it should be a grub problem: even if filesystems are now labelled,
 > grub enumerates present hard drives ... and have the same problems
 > than Lninux with sda becoming sdb.
 > Its configuration file (SATA:/boot/grub/menu.lst) should be updated as
 > well, especially the root keyword.
 >
 > grub is launched from the first bootable drive (/dev/sdb) that is saw
 > as disk hd(1) I guess.
 >
 > So in its configuration file, you should duplicate the default entry
 > (when installed on SATA standalone disk) and change "root hd(0,1)"
 > into "root hd(1,1)"
 >
 > To achieve it, boot from CD/DVD in rescue mode, mount manually your
 > /boot (in / perhaps) and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
 >
 > my $0.02
 >
 > Pierre Bourgin

Hi Pierre,

I thought about grub (but have not tried changing anything there yet), 
but am a bit uncertain if grub is the issue as
- the BIOS boots the SATA disk, and reads the grub bootloader.
- The grub bootloader loads both the kernel and the correct initrd
- The kernel is told to mount LABEL=/ as root
- It is while executing something in the initrd that system decides to 
fsck /dev/sda1
- Once /dev/sda1 is fsck-able (ie after changing the partition layout), 
the system boots without issues.

The filesystem on /dev/sda1 does not at any time contain anything useful 
(it started out as just being an extended partition, and now is 
completely empty. At no time did it have any label set).

Yours,
-S

-- 
Simen Thoresen, Dolphin ICS
Systems Administration and Wulfkit Support