Grub2: Unexpected floppy access during boot

[Arno Wagner]

Binary package hint: grub2

Observation:

During the startup Grub2 always accesses my floppy drive. This happens right after the start-message of grub, but before the appearance of the menu.
Directly after the very noisy floppy-access an error-message is shown wich says something like "bootdisk error". But this message appears only for a fraction of a second and is therefore difficult to read. Instantly after this message has vanished, the normal boot-menu shows up.

The boot process itself is not harmed, though.

My System:

I run a Karmic which has been upgraded from Jaunty. After the additional upgrade from Grub-legacy to Grub2 the problem occured.

"/boot" and "/" are on separate md-RAID1 devices. In the BIOS-Setup boot from floppy is disabled.

/boot/grub/grub.cfg:

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ]; then
  have_grubenv=true
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
  saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
  save_env saved_entry
  prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
fi
insmod raid
insmod mdraid
insmod ext2
set root=(md1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
    # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
    # understand terminal_output
    terminal gfxterm
  fi
fi
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
  set timeout=-1
else
  set timeout=3
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/white
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-20-generic" {
        recordfail=1
        if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
 set quiet=1
 insmod raid
 insmod mdraid
 insmod ext2
 set root=(md0)
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 81eaff32-afc8-405b-988a-b406705313d9
 linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951 ro quiet splash
 initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-20-generic (recovery mode)" {
        recordfail=1
        if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
 insmod raid
 insmod mdraid
 insmod ext2
 set root=(md0)
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 81eaff32-afc8-405b-988a-b406705313d9
 linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951 ro single
 initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-19-generic" {
        recordfail=1
        if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
 set quiet=1
 insmod raid
 insmod mdraid
 insmod ext2
 set root=(md0)
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 81eaff32-afc8-405b-988a-b406705313d9
 linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic root=UUID=33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951 ro quiet splash
 initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-19-generic (recovery mode)" {
        recordfail=1
        if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
 insmod raid
 insmod mdraid
 insmod ext2
 set root=(md0)
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 81eaff32-afc8-405b-988a-b406705313d9
 linux /vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic root=UUID=33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951 ro single
 initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
 linux16 /memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
 linux16 /memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

The output of "blkid":

/dev/sda1: UUID="41bc2f78-e458-1684-01b8-72852ed5029c" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="41bc2f78-e458-1684-01b8-72852ed5029c" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="41bc2f78-e458-1684-01b8-72852ed5029c" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="41bc2f78-e458-1684-01b8-72852ed5029c" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdd2: UUID="6349aeba-2d28-89f4-5df2-e0f586779b09" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdd3: UUID="3fb26858-f1d2-f6b7-e0ae-33b5c42583fc" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdd4: LABEL="zbv" UUID="00bd5d18-05ff-435c-a6d2-2ae21fecbc45" TYPE="jfs"
/dev/sde1: UUID="60c5aa25-5fbc-2752-14c2-b8212ce0c897" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sde2: UUID="f23242d9-a341-410f-92a9-39031e2eac68" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sde3: UUID="6349aeba-2d28-89f4-5df2-e0f586779b09" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sde4: UUID="3fb26858-f1d2-f6b7-e0ae-33b5c42583fc" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdf1: UUID="53c5682b-f875-310d-4bfc-0b2c6692ae0a" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdg1: UUID="60c5aa25-5fbc-2752-14c2-b8212ce0c897" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdg2: UUID="b52b6a3c-9ea0-4680-a71b-3164b7ae6e84" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdg3: UUID="6349aeba-2d28-89f4-5df2-e0f586779b09" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdg4: UUID="3fb26858-f1d2-f6b7-e0ae-33b5c42583fc" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/sdh1: UUID="53c5682b-f875-310d-4bfc-0b2c6692ae0a" TYPE="linux_raid_member"
/dev/md4: UUID="vnxcQ5-RJwf-VOIe-IyPW-MbR2-xb8E-v1MsEd" TYPE="LVM2_member"
/dev/md3: UUID="pwzWMK-205K-MlGp-d42n-yjdV-YpGJ-31Xre2" TYPE="LVM2_member"
/dev/md1: LABEL="root" UUID="33110d94-875a-4a81-9d8e-041a87645951" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/md0: LABEL="boot" UUID="81eaff32-afc8-405b-988a-b406705313d9" TYPE="ext2"
/dev/md2: LABEL="raid5" UUID="651e0a3c-cb8e-4b41-8e04-fa888a523035" TYPE="jfs"
/dev/mapper/vg1-Videos: LABEL="Videos" UUID="90cfec8c-5f25-471e-aaa0-7f7af86c4ce1" TYPE="jfs"
/dev/mapper/vg1-Musik: LABEL="Musik" UUID="af42f650-82f2-4f94-a61b-297429a28405" TYPE="jfs"
/dev/mapper/vg1-home: LABEL="home" UUID="16bb866c-4afe-4d63-8d38-a65eb0f61c05" TYPE="ext4"

I hope this is sufficient information.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Apr 11 11:53:41 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: grub2 1.97~beta4-1ubuntu4.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.58-generic
SourcePackage: grub2
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64

[Dick Streefland (dick-streefland)]

I think the message that is displayed very briefly is "error: fd0 read error".
It seems that grub is probing the floppy multiple times, because the floppy
disk drive sounds like a machine gun. Very annoying.

Is there a workaround to tell grub to completely ignore the floppy disk?
I already have the --no-floppy option on all "search" commands.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I think we need to pass --no-floppy through grub-install to grub-setup, and save it somewhere in core.img so that grub_biosdisk_iterate can get at it.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]