Ubuntu
util-linux package

Boot Stops Waiting for Drive Not Ready

Asked by Steve Redmond

This is similar to Question #111100, but that was old and full of unrelated details to my situation. Here is my problem/annoyance. I want to achieve a nice clean startup.

At Boot time, i.e, every boot, I get a message something like, "The disk drive for /windows is not ready yet or not present. Continue to wait or press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery". I press 'S' to skip, and Ubuntu boots normally. The alleged missing or not ready drive is ready, shows up in the FileSystem and is shared on the network, just the way I want.

I got here through a recent fresh installation of Ubuntu 10.10. I have one internal hard drive, and I set up a number of disk partitions for folders, and one of them was mounted as "/windows" and formatted NTFS. I set this to be shared using gksudo nautilus, because root permission was required.

Here is a copy of my current fstab:

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda5 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
# /home was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=802417b4-029a-40df-9a5c-5bdd6fb4ed1c /home ext3 defaults 0 2
# /opt was on /dev/sda8 during installation
UUID=c37bc18c-eeb4-4904-8784-02c1a8729c3a /opt ext3 defaults 0 2
# /usr was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=1ccd4c49-354e-4037-8725-7ddaca15db56 /usr ext3 defaults 0 2
# /var was on /dev/sda9 during installation
UUID=2edc53a1-1785-4e38-929d-d969f4103158 /var ext3 defaults 0 2
# /windows was on /dev/sda11 during installation
# 110309 changed <pass num> from 1 to 0 (no check) for /windows
#UUID=2909-FB60 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
UUID=2909-FB60 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 0
# swap was on /dev/sda10 during installation
UUID=403e7394-e7f8-4bd9-ab8d-b878166deaf4 none swap sw 0 0

Here is a copy of my blkid:

/dev/sda1: UUID="4ab76d56-2f0e-4aa1-9ed9-f2e9fbfe591c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda5: UUID="e3688491-a5d4-424e-964b-57c05fd3e661" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda6: UUID="802417b4-029a-40df-9a5c-5bdd6fb4ed1c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="1ccd4c49-354e-4037-8725-7ddaca15db56" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda8: UUID="c37bc18c-eeb4-4904-8784-02c1a8729c3a" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda9: UUID="2edc53a1-1785-4e38-929d-d969f4103158" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda10: UUID="403e7394-e7f8-4bd9-ab8d-b878166deaf4" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda11: UUID="07C5DF393ADCCC65" TYPE="ntfs"

Here is my boot.log file:

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2

/dev/sda5: clean, 12615/610800 files, 153353/2441216 blocks

/dev/sda1: clean, 219/62248 files, 50685/248832 blocks (check in 2 mounts)

init: ureadahead-other main process (859) terminated with status 4

init: mounted-tmp main process (861) terminated with status 127

mountall: Event failed

/dev/sda6: clean, 1551/610800 files, 361505/2441216 blocks

init: ureadahead-other main process (870) terminated with status 4

/dev/sda8: clean, 11/610800 files, 76505/2441216 blocks

/dev/sda7: clean, 240407/2445984 files, 1404854/9764864 blocks

init: ureadahead-other main process (892) terminated with status 4

init: ureadahead-other main process (895) terminated with status 4

/dev/sda9: clean, 12408/1220608 files, 645799/4882432 blocks (check in 4 mounts)

init: ureadahead-other main process (912) terminated with status 4

Skipping /windows at user request

 * Starting AppArmor profiles  Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.bin.firefox

I have been trolling through other log files, looking for messages about the problem, but I haven't found any, or at least I haven't recognized any as relevant. I welcome suggestions about what to look for.

Here are my current thoughts:
a) Is Ubuntu quirky about handling the NTFS partition
b) Attaching my /windows folder to Root is unconventional and might be causing a problem,
      e.g., not /media/windows, and not /home/myname/windows. Is it?
c) Some boot process is hung up, but eventually everything gets sorted out; what check failed?
d) What's that bit at the end of the boot.log, about "Skipping profile...disable usr.bin.firefox";
     is that the same 'skipping' that we get when when I press 'S'?
d) I am sure I am not a linux guru, just a W(indows)annabe; need your help

Thanks for any time and comments you give to this.

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Steve Redmond
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

UUID=2909-FB60 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 0

You have set it as vfat in fstab. If it's ntfs then change it to ntfs.

Ubuntu can read and write to NTFS very happily, however windows cannot touch Ext4 which Ubuntu uses by default....

I suggest you boot to Windows and chkdsk the partition so you know it is healthy.

Revision history for this message
Steve Redmond (steveredmond) said : 		#2

Thanks, but changing "vfat" to "ntfs" in fstab had absolutely no effect - blkid, boot.log and messages show no differences.

The /windows folder seems to be working fine, based on network access and file read/writes from Windows XP and Vista machines. This is an Ubuntu only system, so I will have to boot Bart's UBCD or something to do a proper chkdsk. I'll post an update with anything interesting, but I don't expect problems with the partition/formatting.

Still looking...

Revision history for this message
Steve Redmond (steveredmond) said : 		#3

I looked in /media and found a folder /media/07C5DF393ADCCC65. It is and 'empty' folder, according to Nautalis, and has 66.3MB used, and 59.3GB free, of a 64 GB Filesystem. These numbers don't add up!

In GParted, the physical size of /dev/sda11 is 59.40GB, with 66.30MB used, and its mount point is /media/07C5DF393ADCCC65.

Just following that is the swap partition of 5.59GB, which coincidentally is almost the right amount (actually up to 1 GB too much) to make up the difference between 64GB and 59.3GB.

There is a "64GB Filesystem" that shows up in Nautalis 'Places', and when it is opened in a Nautalis tab or window, the mount point shows as 07C5DF393ADCCC65.

The long numeric folder name matches the UUID of /dev/sda11 per blkid. This doesn't seem to match the /windows folder UUID=2909-FB60 , which was (is) also /dev/sda11, found in fstab.

From Nautalis, the /windows folder has 2 files, totaling 67 bytes. There is no size information in its Properties.

So, there are some things I don't understand about how the file system is being managed here. Maybe this is illogical, and that is why the /windows is not found during the boot process.

Should I create a new mount point /media/windows and try to get normalized?

Revision history for this message
Steve Redmond (steveredmond) said : 		#4

I think my problem has been resolved.

Originally I had a NTFS partition on my internal hard drive, labeled "windows", which I wanted to automatically mount and share both locally and over the network with everyone, with full privileges for everyone.

My original fstab from Ubuntu installation (comment lines removed):

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda5 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=802417b4-029a-40df-9a5c-5bdd6fb4ed1c /home ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=c37bc18c-eeb4-4904-8784-02c1a8729c3a /opt ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=1ccd4c49-354e-4037-8725-7ddaca15db56 /usr ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=2edc53a1-1785-4e38-929d-d969f4103158 /var ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=2909-FB60 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
UUID=403e7394-e7f8-4bd9-ab8d-b878166deaf4 none swap sw 0 0

The original setup choked at boot time, saying "/windows" was not ready, and would only run when I manually gave permission to skip mounting "/windows".

I did mess around, and googled a lot of "Ubuntu How To ...". I'm sorry that I didn't journal all the nitty gritty, but here's what I touched:
a) mounting, including numerous pokes into fstab to fix automatic mounting, and changing the name of the mount point to something other than "/windows",
b) folder and file permissions, to give users, guests and everyone access and r/w permissions,
c) deleted and recreated the partition (still NTFS, new label "shared", new mount point "/media/shared", new UUID "622B3..."),
d) considered reinstalling Ubuntu with the default partitions, and simply sharing my user-owned folders on the network,
e) considered installing Windows XP which for all its warts has never bugged me on access or sharing like this, and
f)inally discovered, installed and used "ntfs-config" program to 'fix' it.

In ntfs-config, I basically enabled write support for everything, internal and external. ntfs-config completely rewrote the fstab file, not just the ntfs partition parts. It did create a backup of the initial file named fstab-ntfs-config-save.

The rest is magic; meaning I don't understand what was required and why exactly. These are the changes evident:
    - added a line for the partition mount point
    - used type ntfs-3g, not ntfs
    - added two commented lines for /windows ntfs and for /windows vfat (after I had removed the /windows vfat), for some future consideration!?

P.S. - It appears to me that my original partition label "windows" and the mount point "/windows" might have caused some confusion, as "/windows" appears in the new fstab as part of the magic spell created by ntfs-config, i.e., "windows" is (or should be) a reserved word.

My new fstab (most comments removed):

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
UUID=e3688491-a5d4-424e-964b-57c05fd3e661 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
UUID=4ab76d56-2f0e-4aa1-9ed9-f2e9fbfe591c /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=802417b4-029a-40df-9a5c-5bdd6fb4ed1c /home ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=622B3F661B63D6E8 /media/shared ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_CA.UTF-8 0 0
UUID=c37bc18c-eeb4-4904-8784-02c1a8729c3a /opt ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=1ccd4c49-354e-4037-8725-7ddaca15db56 /usr ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=2edc53a1-1785-4e38-929d-d969f4103158 /var ext3 defaults 0 2
UUID=403e7394-e7f8-4bd9-ab8d-b878166deaf4 none swap sw 0 0
#UUID=2909-FB60 /windows vfat utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
#UUID=2909-FB60 /windows ntfs utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 0

P.S.2. - I wonder if it was worth the trouble to have an ntfs partition in any case. I did this on another Ubuntu installation on an external drive, so I could directly share the disk partition with various Windows computers. But in this case, the drive is built into an Ubuntu-only box, and it can share non-ntfs files over the network just as easily, e.g., /myname/public. Oh well, I've learned something to go back to my 'portable' Ubuntu installation.

Happy Ending: I have local access to my ntfs partition, its files, as both me (admin) and as root, and from remote Windows computers over the network. I'm going to say this is 'solved'.

Thanks to anyone who has taken the time to read and watch this question thread.