2.6.27 (ubuntu 8.10) root disk not found, 2.6.24 working

device /dev/disk/device-by-guid/<guid> not found, dropping to shell
...
(initramfs):

My Mainboard is an MSI P965 Neo2 (Intel 965 chipset), The root disk is on the primary SATA channel connected as master.
Kernel 2.6.24 is working without any probems, I'm lucky I still have the entry for the 2.6.24 kernel in my GRUB menu.lst, so I can start the system, but not with the proper kernel.
I think it hard to believe that my hardware was supported in 2.6.24, but isn't anymore in 2.6.27 searching on the internet didn't tell me anything new.

In the hope it may help, here's the output of "lspci" when running the working 2.6.24 kernel:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HB/HR (ICH8/R) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1)
02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
02:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller (rev c0)

More additional info:

My board doesn't allow me to select AHCI mode for SATA, and I already tried to switch between "enhanced" and "compatible" mode, but there was no difference in behavior.

I got exactly the same problem and I don't know how to solve!

I'm trying on every forum, if I get infos I'll tell you immediately...please do the same with me!

Sure thing...
I alredy filed a bug report for this exact problem (there are similar, but different ones around), under the bug id: #294123
I only forgot to add the link...

The bug report contains much more information from my system (like dmesg output ...), maybe you can check there if it is indeed the same as on your side, and if so, click the "this bug affects me,too " link on the top of the bug report page...

I am having a similar problem with my Intel D975XBX2. http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/D975XBX2/D975XBX2-overview.htm My motherboard has:
  - Four Serial ATA interfaces
         - 1 DVD/CD SATA
         - 300GB SATA Maxtor HD (System)
         - 750GB SATA Seagate HD (DATA)
         - 750GB SATA Seagate HD (DATA)
  - Four additional interfaces available with optional discrete RAID controller
         - 750GB SATA Seagate HD (DATA)

This setup works fine in the 8.04 kernel. After I upgraded via update manager to new 8.10 and I get the similar errors people are complaining about. My error came up originally as:
root=uuid=blahblah cannot be found.

Then i get a bunce of messages saying something is not read and it is trying a soft restart, etc. Then I am finally relegated to the busy box interface.

The weird thing is that if I change the configuration to be:
  - Four Serial ATA interfaces
         - 1 DVD/CD SATA
         - 300GB SATA Maxtor HD (System)

I can boot into 8.10 with the new kernel and run with no problem. So I am guessing there is a driver that was in the old kernel is not currently part of the new kernel or something. The new kernel does not like dealing with things attached to that second set of Sata connectors on my motherboard. If you look at the picture, its the set of connectors with the red Sata connector.

I hope this helps.

That sounds similar, but unfortunately my board has only four SATA connectors from the INTEL 965 chipset, and one PATA and one SATA in an additional Marvell chipset, which I originally had disabled, then changed to enabled, but there was no difference in behaviour. I remember, that in kernel 2.6.22 or so, the Marvell chipset wasn't supported at all, so I disabled it in the BIOS

thats weird, because I've had mine enabled the whole time I was on 8.04. I believe mine is using the Marvell chipset also.

Yeah, I don't remember the exact kernel version where support for that Marvell chipset was added, but I think it was 6.10 what I first installed on the machine in question. By that time I had a PATA DVD drive, from which I couldn't install the system. Because it was already old and I could still use the drive in another machine, I got a new SATA optical drive, which worked perfectly on all releases since - so I didn't try that PATA chipset anymore. However, now on 8.10 suddenly the whole SATA stuff has stopped working...

In any case, this really has to be a bug, since the regression behaviour with 2.6.24 clearly shows that everything USED to work in a previous release.

The bootdelay option does NOT work for me either...in case you were wondering....

did anyone tried to load the all_geenric_ide or biosirq or play around in the BIOS setting to see if anything helps?

Yes, I tried with the all_generic_ide option, and it really works! But I still wonder why it worked on 2.6.24, and I also thin that all_generic_ide is not a "real" solution, since the ata_piix driver actually should handle the hardware in this case.

The issue persists in 9.10, but see my comments on bug #294123