Comment 8 for bug 260807

ok, i got a bit further into it. first of all, i found that kernel logging was delayed per "-" switch in /etc/syslog.conf. i removed that and now kern.log shows some strange news on shutdown:

>Aug 25 09:10:50 machineone kernel: [ 2013.680949] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Synchronizing SCSI cache
>Aug 25 09:10:50 machineone kernel: [ 2013.699966] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Stopping disk
>Aug 25 09:10:50 machineone kernel: [ 2013.700134] sd 4:0:1:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache
^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Aug >25 09:12:47 machineone kernel: Inspecting /boot/System.map-2.6.24-21-generic

the STRANGE thing about this is, that SDB (!) is the FLASH DRIVE hosting /, while sda is a standard sata2 hdd!? next thing i tried was to simply unplug the hdd (pc off), restart my pc, try the shutdown thing again and having a look at the logfiles. but - nothing! i did a shutdown at 9:27 and the not-cleanly-unmounted issue still persists, but now kern.log simply shows nothing!

>Aug 25 09:22:49 machineone kernel: [ 74.106803] ALSA /build/buildd/linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-2.6.24/debian/build/build-generic/sound/alsa-driver/usb/usbaudio.c:1345: 4:2:1: usb_set_interface failed
>Aug 25 09:28:44 machineone kernel: Inspecting /boot/System.map-2.6.24-21-generic

syslog only reads

>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty4 main process (5187) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty5 main process (5188) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty2 main process (5196) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty3 main process (5197) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty6 main process (5202) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:27:00 machineone init: tty1 main process (5985) killed by TERM signal
>Aug 25 09:28:44 machineone syslogd 1.5.0#1ubuntu1: restart.

and that's it!
as already mentioned, i moved my /swap to sda5, that is, my hdd.

>Aug 25 08:38:01 machineone kernel: [ 46.052364] Adding 1951856k swap on /dev/sda5. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:1951856k

it seems to me that unplugging this hdd somehow causes the log-lack. but what i really don't understand is, why - according to kern.log - my root fs btw. drive is stopped before the hdd? is the kernel usually moved to /swap on shutdown?!
one more thing i recognized using a digicam to film the shutdown process of my screen is the message

>*Will now halt
>halt: unable to iterate IDE devices. No such file or directory.

which seems to occur always on an attempted shutdown, regardless of the hdd bein connected or not.