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I connected a second hard drive to my computer with the intention of mounting a partition which it contains (an older version of my current Linux partition). What happens after I turn the computer on is that the bootloader from the first drive launches and loads the kernel, also from the first drive, but the partition from the second drive gets mounted as the root filesystem (even though the partition from the first one is visible as /dev/sda2 and /etc/fstab on it says that /dev/sda2 should be mounted as /). Why does it happen and what should I do to get the system to boot as before?

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This problem is usually caused when you add a drive and forget to change device names in /etc/fstab or where ever the root filesystem is referenced.

For example the drive can change its device name from /dev/sda to /dev/sdb. This is why modern systems use labels or UUIDs to identify filesystems correctly, even if they are reordered for some reason.

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  • The partition from the first drive is still visible as /dev/sda2,, though.
    – user2656304
    Sep 2, 2016 at 20:53
  • Don't forget that you can pass device names for the rootfs in the boot manager, too (kernel parameters).
    – Martin Sugioarto
    Sep 2, 2016 at 20:59
  • But the device names for the first drive are still the same!
    – user2656304
    Sep 2, 2016 at 21:06
  • Do you have the kernel parameter root=/dev/sda2 set or is it omitted?
    – Martin Sugioarto
    Sep 2, 2016 at 21:21
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    You haven't told anything about how you installed the new Linux system. Are duplicate UUIDs involved? Are you absolutely sure that the kernel from /dev/sda is loading? Are there any hints in the log how devices and partitions are probed and if there are failures/errors?
    – Martin Sugioarto
    Sep 2, 2016 at 21:37

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