Linux – Force PCIe SSD to be /dev/sdb on linux install

dell-poweredgehp-proliantlinuxssd

Is there any options to force the PCIe SSD during install to be not /dev/sda? I was hoping to reserve the SSD to be limited to be only /var but the grub loader fails each time when I try to set the bootable partition to be /dev/sdc2 (sdb is usb install drive).

I have been installing on Dell r610 and HP DL385 G6 servers using both CentOS 6.6 and Ubuntu 14 and the PCI device always shows up before the raid devices.

Best Answer

I wouldn't eff with udev rules for this. Modify your install scripts (preseed or kickstart) to ignore /dev/sda.

See: Consistent Install Disk Selection in RHEL Kickstart

Also, is there any way you can run a network install. USB installation of the OS is fraught because of SCSI enumeration issues.

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Linux – Cannot install grub to RAID1 (md0)

The warning points out the root cause. The new disk that you used for the replacement probably used to have a filesystem on it and grub-setup is now confused by the metadata that is probably still in there.

So, just wipe out everything at the beginning of the disk up to the first partition. I took the 62 number from the fdisk -l output. It says that 63 is the start of the first partition, which sounds like there are 62 sectors before it that you can clean out.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=62

Then recreate the partition table:

sfdisk -d /dev/sdb | sfdisk /dev/sda

sfdisk will probably complain about "the kernel may be using the old partition table" but you can ignore the warning since you are not really changing the partition table.

Then you should be able to grub-install /dev/sda.

Update:

If you are still getting errors, try taking the disk out of the RAID and zeroing out more data from the beginning and the end. Or just zero out the whole disk (dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda). Then add it back to the RAID as you did before, starting from sfdisk -d /dev/sdb | sfdisk /dev/sda. And consider switching to metadata format 1.0 as was recommended in a few other places.

Linux – Stuck at grub prompt after a default CentOS 6 installation

I eventually resolved this problem by following the advice given by Michael above. Zeroing out the first few megabytes of the drive and then re-installing the operating system did the trick. I suppose there was some sort of MBR or partition table corruption at play.

If you are stuck at a grub screen after a fresh CentOS installation, try following these steps:

Insert the CentOS installation disc or mount the ISO.
Boot into rescue mode and enter into shell. Skip any steps to mount the existing file-system.
Run the command fdisk -l to determine the label of the drive you need to zero out (e.g., /dev/sda, /dev/sdb). If you have multiple drives, be very careful to pick the right one.
Run the command dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512 count=4000 where /dev/sdX is the drive in question (e.g., /dev/sda, /dev/sdb).
Exit out of the rescue shell and reboot.
Re-install CentOS 6 as per normal.

Best Answer

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Linux – Cannot install grub to RAID1 (md0)

Linux – Stuck at grub prompt after a default CentOS 6 installation

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