On Thu, 23 Dec 2010, Larry Linder wrote:

> During the Boot process the files in /etc contain init files such as "fstab"
> file system table.   If a disk listed in this file is not available it drops
> you to run level 1.   You used to be able to modify the init data files used
> during boot.   Enter the root "passwd", modify files, save and reboot.   Now
> when you enter your root "passwd" you get two notices and it fails.  At this
> point not even the rescue stuff works.
> To demo problem - load SL 5.5 on a disk and load your apps on a second disk.
> Once it is up and running shut it down, remove the data connection to the
> second disk.   On boot up it fails and drops you to a run level of 1.   At
> this point you are done.   This only happens on SL systems.  SUSE and others
> work fine.

I'm not sure if this is a troll.

It seems to work for me.  Disks die and we have had our share of them. 
When a non-boot disk dies the boot fails to mount the fs and we end up 
(after a prompt for the root pw) in a shell where we can fix fstab etc.

Note: apart from /boot/ we pretty much use LVM for all fs these days.

If recovery from a failed 'data disk' didn't work there would be many more 
people complaining.  Maybe your setup is unusual in some way.

Booting from the install media should allow access to all the file-systems 
as long as the kernel support is present.  Again it all seems to work as 
expected for me.

   -- Jon

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| Jon Peatfield, _Computer_ Officer, DAMTP,  University of Cambridge |
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