Ubuntu
dmraid package

On first boot "Gave up waiting for root device"

Bug #360530 reported by Alvin
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
dmraid (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: usplash

A fresh in stall from the Ubuntu 9.04 Alternate Beta amd64 CD. The installation was to a software raid 0 on /dev/md3 freshly formated with ext4. The boot partition was on /dev/sda1 freshly formated with ext3.
The first boot after the install failed with the above error message. There is no /dev/md3 device in dev, the raid modules appear to be correctly installed.

I have attached screen shots of ls /dev, cat /proc/modules, cat /proc/cmdline and dmesg.

The clue is in the last line of dmesg, "unable to remove open device nvidia_ddbfdieb. From past experience if this module is loaded then the software raid is not accessible. All the disks are mapped through the motherboard raid controller.

Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :

Part of ls /dev

Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :

Screen shot of cat /proc/cmdline and cat /proc/modules

Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :

screen shot of ls /dev part 2

Colin Watson (cjwatson)
affects: usplash (Ubuntu) → mdadm (Ubuntu)
affects: mdadm (Ubuntu) → dmraid (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Luke Yelavich (themuso) wrote :

When you installed Ubuntu, were you asked whether you wanted to activate the SATA RAID array? Could you also try and run dmraid -s in the installed system, and report back with the output you are given?

Thanks.

Changed in dmraid (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :

During the install, when asked, I said no to activating the SATA RAID. I have attached a screen shot of the prompt.

I think that this is another bug. Having to say No to installing a raid when I want a raid setup is confusing. The reason is I want a software raid and the question is about installing a hardware raid. This is not clear from the prompt. When I answer Yes to the prompt my existing software raid is not visible in the partition manager.

Should I raise a separate bug for this or wait?.

Revision history for this message
Alvin (alvin-camberlo) wrote :

This is the output from the Suse 10.2 running on the same system for dmraid and lsmod.

kandm:~ # dmraid -s
*** Set
name : nvidia_ddbfdieb
size : 2930319360
stride : 128
type : raid5_ls
status : ok
subsets: 0
devs : 4
spares : 0
kandm:~ # lsmod |grep raid
raid456 137248 2
xor 22800 1 raid456
raid1 40704 0
raid0 24576 6
kandm:~ #

Revision history for this message
Luke Yelavich (themuso) wrote : Re: [Bug 360530] Re: On first boot "Gave up waiting for root device"

Ok, the problem is that you are trying to combine two different types of software RAID on your system. If your root device in SuSE is something like /dev/mapper/nv_blah, then I suggest you do not use Linux software RAID in Ubuntu, and answer yes to the SATA RAID question when you re-install, which is what you will have to do.

Theoretically these two different software RAID implementations should work together, but practically they don't, and there is no point combining two software RAID setups, one sitting on top of the other.

SATA RAID is referred to as such because while it is Software RAID that is set up using metadata written to your disks by your computer's BIOS, it is not the same as Linux Software RAID, so there has to be a way to tell the difference. If you can think of a better way to describe it, I;d be interested in hearing your suggestino, as I am not fond of the definition SATA RAID, but have been unable to think of a better one as of yet.

Hope this all makes sense.

Changed in dmraid (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Won't Fix
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