disk drive order incorrectly recognized Hardy 8.04 amd64

Bug #223994 reported by zuvan
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
grub (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
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Bug Description

This is maybe not new, but here it is again in 8.,04. It is like:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/44261
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+bug/8497
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub-installer/+bug/46520
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub-installer/+bug/32357
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub-installer/+bug/45989

I include more detail than in other reports. Attached is the lshw output file.
/proc/partions files:
---Drive ordering one (agrees with BIOS):
major minor #blocks name
   8 0 29316672 sda
   8 1 14362078 sda1
   8 2 1526175 sda2
   8 3 13422307 sda3
   8 16 156290904 sdb
   8 17 39062016 sdb1
   8 18 38090115 sdb2
   8 19 38090115 sdb3
   8 20 41046075 sdb4
---Drive ordering two (drives in wrong order)
major minor #blocks name
   8 0 156290904 sda
   8 1 39062016 sda1
   8 2 38090115 sda2
   8 3 38090115 sda3
   8 4 41046075 sda4
   8 16 29316672 sdb
   8 17 14362078 sdb1
   8 18 1526175 sdb2
   8 19 13422307 sdb3

    Installed kubuntu 8.04 5 times using 2 install disks, first time drives were correctly ordered, and one other time, but the other times the drives were in wrong order by the time installer got to the partitioner step. Machine would not boot (grub couldn't find correct partitions) until I caught on to what was happening.
    Installed ubuntu server 3 times. Correct order on first install, then aptitude installed kdebase where I got error report about missing swap file (later realized it must have changed the disk order during kde install??) said yes to the correction and got wrong order. Second install wrong order. Third install got the server squared away, went for coffee and vodoo finger crossing ritual, installed kdebase, no error and the drives are in the right order.
    I didn't ever have this problem in the two previous versions of Ubuntu on this machine same configuration. I would have chalked this up to the a BIOS error as there are problems with the SATA dvd drive sometimes, but there is a lot of similar reports. This seems pretty serious as its losing track of (preexisting) swap partitions, writing to the wrong disk MBRs and changing the drive order that grub is expecting and so making booting the new install and the other OSs impossible. Somewhere I saw that it might be specific to 64 bit systems (can't find it again) but these are getting to be pretty common aren't they?

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zuvan (wayzee567) wrote :
Revision history for this message
zuvan (wayzee567) wrote :

    The drives are actually being randomly reassigned at each reboot, that is there is no persistence as I was thinking above. An example is links I had on the desktop that got reassigned to different partitions each reboot.

    A discussion of why using UUIDs is a problem for those of us who change things around on the hard drives a lot:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=731401
I suppose I could use labels, or assign short memorable UUIDs to the partitions, though it seems much better to use designations that are more reflective of the actual hardware because then I know at a glance what hardware I am using and thus speed and size data that helps me monitor the system.

    Another bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/205324

    Problem is a race between udev and dmsetup and a way to solve it?
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UdevDeviceMapper
http://fredericiana.com/2006/03/15/writing-udev-rules-short-notes/
http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html
So, the Ubuntu installer scripts ought to be writing these persistence rules. Without such rules you are randomly assigning hardware into the filesystem hierarchy at each reboot which clearly plays havoc with a lot of other things.

Revision history for this message
zuvan (wayzee567) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Ian Weisser (ian-weisser) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

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