partitions not getting mounted at boot

[JD]

On 12/30/2012 11:46 PM, JD wrote:
> Tom H on December 29th, 2012 - 4:27 am wrote:
> >On 12/28/2012 01:59 PM, JD wrote:
> >> Ubuntu 12.10 with latest updates.
> >> I have 2 external drives connected to esata2 pcmcia hub.
> >> Lately, what is happening when I reboot, I get a banner
> >> that /dev/sdb1 could not be mounted, press S to skip press M to ????
> >>
> >> If press M, andlogin, I run fsck on all the partitions that were 
> supposed
> >> to get mounted (they used to be mounted when I first installed 
> ubuntu 12.10).
> >> fsck fails and says the device is busy.
> >> Yet it is not mounted at all.
> >> if I ls it's mountmount point as configures in fstab,
> >> no files are visible.
> >> So, why does fsck say it is busy?
> >>
> >> This is the case on all partition of both drives.
> >>
> >> Now the weird thingis that if I do
> >> mount -a
> >> then all get mounted and everything is fine.
> >> What is causing this weird behaviour??
>
> > Could it be that the esata drivers load too late? (Although the fact 
> that they were mounted previously makes it unlikely.)
>
> I actually turn on the external drives at least a minute or two before 
> I power up the laptop.
> I can actually hear then click when initialization is complete, then I 
> power up the laptop.
>
> > What are the mountpoints that you’re using?*
> >*
>
> in /etc/fstab, the mount points look like this:
>
> UUID=4bfba40e-1257-4b09-9adb-c1498e8b10eb /sdb1 ext3 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 0
> UUID=cef78441-c866-492e-bc2e-41cfbf68baa9 /sdb3 ext4 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 1
> UUID=7512-FE09 /sdb4 vfat rw,user,uid=1008,gid=1008,errors=remount-ro 0 2
> UUID=cac8ee87-d20b-42ca-bc77-aabcee8b52a1 /sdb5 ext4 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 3
> UUID=3CFF2EB56FA47EF0 /sdc1 ntfs 
> rw,user,uid=1008,gid=1008,errors=remount-ro 0 0
> UUID=644f8347-c203-46c5-8736-ef505d4dfd11 /sdc2 ext4 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 1
> UUID=5bc5f940-7957-40aa-be2a-ac0701e4020c /sdc3 ext4 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 2
> UUID=5f291879-0b2f-4849-b8fe-2acdd452d2ba /sdc4 ext4 errors=remount-ro 
> 0 3
> UUID=791e12f5-523c-4403-be97-847f82497732 /sdc5 ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 
Found the cause.
The multipathd which got installed with multipath-tools, which I do not 
even recall installing.!!!
I removed the package and it's conf files, AND, just to be safe, I 
appended the arg  nodmraid
to the linux line in /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
I did it for every menuconfig block.
I rebooted, and all is back to  normal.