For some kinds of devices (e.g., USB sticks), devices are detected asynchronously. For instance, when the stage 1 script does “modprobe usb_storage”, the USB storage devices won’t be there yet when modprobe returns. Instead it may take a few seconds for them to appear. However, by that time mount will have failed and the stage 1 init barfs.

Workaround: if the boot fails, just type “exec /init” in the emergency shell to retry the boot process after the devices have appeared (i.e., after a console message such as "SCSI device sda: …).

Submitted on 23 January 2007 at 23:51