On Monday 21 December 2009 15:52:29 Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: > Hi, > > I have 2 internal ATA HDD's and 2 disks in external USB enclosures. > > When you boot (this is Sid) the 2 USB disks report their presence > between the messages: > > 'Loading, please wait...' > and > 'Init 2.86 booting' > in the very beginning of the boot process. > > Now the funny part: in my homegrown kernel both show up together. But > with recent Debian kernel images only one shows up. I have a delay of 10 > secs. in initramfs-tools but that makes no difference. > > The 2nd USB disk shows up eventually, but after 'Init 2.86 booting' when > it is too late to be of use by fstab. > > This isn't the first time I've asked this, but nobody seems to have an > answer.
It's likely the devices aren't being recognized in the initramfs -- possibly they require kernel modules which are not present by default. If you know which modules drive these devices, add them by name to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules (one module per line, I think), and re-generate your initramfs with update-initramfs. This should allow the udev scan in the initramfs to see the devices, and set them up earlier. "Init 2.86 booting" is a very important milestone in the boot process, it marks the transition from initramfs activity to root file-system activity. Anything you want to do *before* that has to be in the initramfs. Or, as the other responder mentioned, you can just stick with a custom kernel. I used to do that, but I like getting security updates. -- A. -- Andrew Reid / rei...@bellatlantic.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org