System can't boot after upgrade to SLES10 SP2

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1

Situation

Systems with RAID controller using the aacraid driver, such as the PERC 3/i

After performing an upgrade from SLES10 SP1 to SLES10 SP2 (or equivalent) the system boots to the maintenance console indicating a failed filesystem check.

ERROR: fsck failed for at least one filesystem

Resolution

The problem is caused by the aacraid module which uses a different naming scheme for udev devices in SLES10 SP2 rendering previous udev device path entries in /etc/fstab such as /dev/disk/by-id/ invalid.

Workaround:

Edit /etc/fstab from the maintenance/rescue console and correct the block device paths. In case the system is not using LVM please edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and changeroot= and resume= entries to the same values as in /etc/fstab.

Additional Information

The problem is related to RAID controllers using the aacraid driver, such as PERC 3/i which are typically found in older DELL PowerEdge servers.

Disclaimer

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