[CentOS] boot process glitch due to missing 2nd disk

[Joshua Baker-LePain]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 at 11:34am, Dave wrote

> Thanks for all the discussion, but keyboard is not the issue.
>
> I guess I should edit the bios settings and look for a way to tell it "hey,
> you've only got one disk now, be happy."

All Dell desktops I've dealt with (including the Precision T3400 I use 
now) require you to go into the BIOS and explicitly tell you which busses 
(IDE before, SATA now) have disks attached to them.  If you don't tell it 
about a disk you do have, the disk won't appear to the OS.  And if you do 
tell it about a disk you don't have, then the boot will hang complaining 
about a missing disk.  It's asinine and I've never seen any other BIOS 
like it.  But it's consistent.  I've never dealt with Dell's server 
hardware, so I have on idea if they do the same thing there (dear God I 
hope not).

In any case, yes, you must go into the BIOS and explicitly enumerate your 
disks there.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
QB3 Shared Cluster Sysadmin
UCSF