[Beowulf] Re:moving of Linux HDD to other node: udev problem at boot

[David Mathog]

"Mikhail Kuzminsky" <kus at free.net> wrote:

> I moved Western Digital SATA HDD w/SuSE 10.3 installed (on dual 
> Barcelona server) to dual Nehalem server (master HDD on Nehalem 
> server) with Supermicro X8DTi mobo.

Which means any number of drivers will have to change.  The boot could
only succeed if all of these new drivers are present in the distro AND
the installation isn't hardwired to use information from the previous
system.  The first may be true, the second is almost certainly false.
On Mandriva, and probably Red Hat, and maybe Suse, even cloning between
"identical" systems requires that that the file:

  /etc/udev/rules.d/61-net_config.rules

be removed before reboot as it holds a copy of the MAC from the previous
system, and no two machines (should) have the same MAC even if they are
otherwise identical.  There are a lot of other files in the same
directory which I believe hold similar machine specific information.

Similarly, your /etc/modprobe.conf will almost certainly load modules
which are not appropriate for the new system.  If there is an
/etc/sysconfig directory there may be files there that also hold machine
specific information.  The /etc/sensors.conf configuration will also
certainly also be incorrect.

And remember, this assumes the distro even has all the right pieces
somewhere on the disk - which it may not.

Perhaps you can successfully boot the system in safe mode and then run
whatever configuration tool Suse provides to reset all of these hardware
specific files?  Otherwise, it might be easier to wipe the disk and do a
clean install.

Regards,

David Mathog
mathog at caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech