[feisty] kernel boot delayed 60 secs on floppy error

There is usually a way to disable floppy disk in the BIOS setup. Please try that.

Thank you for your bugreport.

Can you make a file with the output of the command

dmesg > dmesg.txt

in a console and post it as attachment here?

regards
Stefan

I disabled the floppy in the bios as Tim suggested. There is no delay now. Stefan, find syslog attached.

Thanks

Gerd

Its weird that the lib-ata code can't properly detect the floppy. There are more lib-ata fixes appearing in the 2.6.20-14 kernel on Monday 4/2/07. If you have time, please try the daily ISO http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current.

hi,

i just ran into the same error. i used the latest daily image. this is on a notebook with changable drive bays. so one normally doesn`t want to disable the floppy drive in the bios.

I got the problem on a Dell Latitude C600 with changable drive bay. While trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 from the Live-CD and switching to tty0 I got:

[ 84.588000] Buffer I/O Error on device fd0, logical block 0

with different numbers at the beginning for four times. And a

[ 300.42400] hdc: drive not ready for command

two time with different numbers at the beginning.

After reading this issue I tried waiting a while and after some minutes the Live-CD resumed starting.

Unfortunally I cant switch off floppy in the BIOS and i'am curious if a kernel-parameter may help.

If you are desperate enough, you can try the other kernel with low latency. I had tried it with success. Kernel 2.6.20-15-lowlatency. Be aware, that there is no support for this kernel.

There seems to be no way to avoid the problem by changing a BIOS setting on my Dell Latitude C400. BIOS setup utility already claims that there is no floppy drive installed. Probably, BIOS provides a kind of placeholder device for future attachment of the floppy drive.

There exists a workaround for this problem (tested on kubuntu-7.04-alternate-i386):

modprobe -r floppy
rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.ko

This removes the floppy module from memory and then from ramdisk to prevent reloading it.

I just want to report that this bug remains in Gutsy Tribe 3. It affects both my desktop and one of the laptops. Its an important issue, because system looks like crashed - for 60 seconds (really? feels more like several minutes...) the screen is completely blank and you don't hear the cd working. User has no idea what's going on (on the beginning I was just restarting, because I was sure that the boot process just froze). Only after that period user sees two "Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0" errors, and system continue to boot.

I can confirm this issue on Dell Latitude C640 and Ubuntu 7.10 (final). Also on one more computer (I don't know brand). Both computers don't have floppy installed and don't have option in bios to disable floppy controller. The boot halts for about 2 minutes, displaying messages like
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0

I think this should certainly have higher priority, because to user it seems that Ubuntu is frozen. And he will probably conclude that Ubuntu simply doesn't run on his computer.

Now I have found out, that not only the livecd boot takes 5 minutes more, I can't even install Ubuntu 7.10! It hangs in the installer where disk partitioning is started. It waits and waits and waits... The system is responding, I can close the installer. But I simply can't install Ubuntu, it waits forever. I have waited like 20 minutes, after that my patience was gone.

*** Guys, this should be marked as CRITICAL! ***

It's a real blocker, I (and a lot of other people) simply *can't* install Ubuntu!

I've got that too. It's a kernel issue, it happens only in gutsy's 2.6.22 here; kernel.org 2.6.23 works fine...

Oh and after turning off floppy drive in BIOS I've got this:

udevd-event[2338]: run program '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit

and a busybox prompt (that's kubuntu desktop install.) No dmesg there, unfortunately.

I have a system with no floppy, and with the floppy turned off in BIOS. However, I do have a media card reader, and I don't know if that looks like the floppy to the installer, but I get the same problem. It happened in Feisty, Gutsy and now with the Alpha 3 of Hardy Kubuntu. It starts fine, but then stops.
dmesg thinks there is a floppy for some reason, I don't know how it gets that because the floppy option is BIOS is not selectable and says "not installed".

In short, my wait is from [60] to [281], which is almost 4 minutes.

After it boots, everything works fine, and it boots into kdm without any problems once it resumes. Even installs go well. My boot time with Feisty was probably 1 minute, which is nowhere near the 6 or 7 minutes for the liveCD.

I've never had floppy problems with boot or shutdown with an installed system, just the liveCDs.

Update.

Looking at the dmesg file from the last boot, I did see that the floppy controller was still being enabled.

I dug a bit deeper into the BIOS and discovered another setting. This one was for the FDC, and it was enabled. I disabled that, and then rebooted with the liveCD for Kubuntu alpha3 Hardy.

Here is the latest dmesg file. Much better.

I'm thinking that everything is working as it should. With the FDC enabled, the OS should look for a device. However, maybe the timeout could be reduced?

On a Dell Latitude C400 (booting from removable cdrom), got error "Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0" on Live CD boot. It took about 7 or 8 minutes before it stopped worrying about it and booted the kernel.

After update Ubuntu 7.10 -> Ubuntu 8.04, *every system start* took about 5 minutes, not just the LiveCD. I had to manually blacklist "floppy" module and everything went back to normal. Dell Latitude C640, no floppy drive attached, no option to disable floppy in BIOS.

Same on my Asus barbone: have "Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0" after kernel start. This bug occurs when starting from Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 live CDs. No pb using Ubuntu 6.10 live CD.

duplicate of bug #97306 ?

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KernelCommonProblems#head-f8552798faafc34671c5e4a091a1310a4373aff6

maybe try to pass floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 to the kernel to see if that help

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

This is one of the most annoying bugs.

Blacklisting floppy module in the initrd will stop system from pausing for 1+ minute(s) on an non-existent floppy drive. No reason it needs to be there because who uses floppy to load drivers?

Once the livecd reaches the desktop the floppy is available (lsmod | grep floppy shows it is loaded), eg don't blacklist in squashfs.

This will stop the annoying pauses but still allow floppy to function in the OS.

The 18 month support period for Feisty Fawn 7.04 has reached it's end of life - http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-7.04-end-of-life . As a result, we are closing the linux-source-2.6.20 kernel task. However, this will remain open against the actively developed kernel. Thanks.

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

The 18 month support period for Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 has reached its end of life -
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-7.10-eol . As a result, we are closing the
linux-source-2.6.22 kernel task. It would be helpful if you could test the
new Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release and confirm if this issue remains -
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904overview. If the issue still exists with the Jaunty
release, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux (Ubuntu)"
task from "Incomplete" to "New". Also please be sure to run the command below
which will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this
report. Thanks in advance.

apport-collect -p linux-image-2.6.28-11-generic 95857

I'm marking this as a duplicate to bug 384579 as it appears to be the same issue and the same error messages. Additionally bug 384579 has a specific kernel dev assigned. Please continue to track this issue at that report and provide any information there. Thanks.