Boot proces in 10.04 pauses when device in fstab is not present

[James Fisher]

I maintain a list of removable drives in my fstab on a home server. Typically, these are not present when the machine boots.

Since 10.04, the boot process pauses when any device listed in the fstab is not present. It does not continue booting until 's' is pressed.

This is an extremely annoying bug on the server, as it has neither a keyboard, nor mouse, nor monitor, meaning that I have to transfer these to the machine every time I wish to boot it.

Why is this new behaviour present? How do I configure it? Can I mark a device in the fstab as 'removable media'? Is there somewhere else that I should be listing non-permanent devices?

[James Fisher (jameshfisher)]

I also see frustration at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/boot-stops-at-splash-screen-waiting-for-sdc1-10-04-a-812511/