menu.lst reflects wrong disk whenever automagically modified

[anystupidname]

I'm having difficulty understanding why an external USB storage drive that is not bootable is hd0,0 (/dev/sdb) and the internal SATA drive I boot from normally is hd1,0 (/dev/sda). Every time I let a kernel upgrade occur, it changes the entries in /boot/grub/menu.lst to hd0,0 which make it not bootable until I fix it manually... If anybody has any suggestions, they would be much appreciated!

menu.lst

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-21-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic root=UUID=8c5316a2-1f84-47ea-ab90-b424eebd9d1f ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-21-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-21-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic root=UUID=8c5316a2-1f84-47ea-ab90-b424eebd9d1f ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-21-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=8c5316a2-1f84-47ea-ab90-b424eebd9d1f ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=8c5316a2-1f84-47ea-ab90-b424eebd9d1f ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, memtest86+
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

title UNetbootin-partitionmanagerrev146
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/ubnkern noapic root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk_size=200000 keymap=us liveusb vga=791 quiet toram
initrd /boot/ubninit
boot


fstab

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=8c5316a2-1f84-47ea-ab90-b424eebd9d1f / reiserfs notail,relatime 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=70915f17-f612-472f-952c-698e8a57e43f none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

###STORE### /dev/sda3
UUID=8b6ad4f3-31ce-4c73-b484-93e8a33e8b24 /store jfs defaults 0 1

###VM### /dev/sdb1
UUID=888d5a16-fe34-42b2-825b-49dfd81e12f4 /vm jfs defaults 0 1

[ianhaycox]

Not much consolation but I have the same problem. I have an old dapper/edgy/feisty updated install on one partition and hardy on another. Updating the kernel always messes up menu.lst and uses the UUID and root() of the old partition but the kernel names in the new partition.

I'd love to know why and how to fix it, preferably before I upgrade to Ibex.

[anystupidname]

This problem appears to be fixed in Ibex... (8.10)

[C.S.Cameron]

This also happened to me in the early days of 8.10 but seems to be fixed now.
Have not seen it in 8.04.
You could try unplugging your USB before doing an upgrade.

[ianhaycox]

As I feared I got bitten by this upgrading to Intrepid. Manually editing menu.lst during the updrade fixed my problem.

However, I did notice that I had a line,


# kopt=root=UUID=d1f2d712-0cad-48f7-84d8-46b03c647232 ro

in menu.lst with the UUID of my old partition. Changing to the correct UUID has fixed the problem on subsequent kernel updates.