Hi again,

Sorry for two system problems over the holidays, but this last one truly has me stumped.

Last week I had a problem trying to back up files onto a large drive using a USB enclosure.

This week I've tried to complete the install, and of course it could not go without problems....

The config is:

SDD with /boot and /

HDD1 with /var, /home and swap

HDD2 has one data partition

HDD3 has one data partition

I am trying to replace HDD2 with HDD3.

HDD3 installs and mounts just fine. But if I unplug HDD2, the machine refuses to boot. Taking it to recovery mode eventually ends up in a hardware freeze. Plugging it back in goes to a normal boot, even though the HDD2's partition is no longer mounted to anything.

I've tried to eliminate the BIOS as a source of the problem, have updated it to the latest version and ensured that the disk-to-be-removed is not seen in any BIOS configurations.

I attach the one log file I am able to capture, since it freezes before mounting /var.

As best as I can tell the freeze happens during the point of the bootup where it's running fsck on the drives. It may be looking for the removed HDD2 but I don't know where it's remembering to look for it. HDD2 is no longer in /etc/fstab and I searched in vain for any instance of the UUID of HDD2 in either /boot or /etc.

Any suggestions?

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada

@evanleibovitch or @el56