At 12:55 PM +0200 5/26/05, Boris Glawe wrote: >There are kernel boot parameters to tell the kernel not to search for >disk: It's something like hda=none hdb=none. > >May the parameter is a little different - google helps. As soon as you >know what the correct parameter is, append it in the file /etc/grub.conf >to the line "kernel ..." Thank you for pointing that out. man bootparam says: The 'hd=noprobe' option Do not probe for this drive. For example, hdb=noprobe hdb=1166,7,17 would disable the probe, but still specify the drive geometry so that it would be registered as a valid block device, and hence usable. I'd missed that in man bootparam -- too much SCSI stuff, and I saw only the cylinder numbers. I only need the first part: hda=noprobe hdb=noprobe It takes almost a minute off the boot time, and some of the remaining time is being used for real work that doesn't show with the "quiet" boot param. [ Aside -- all that shows up with "quiet" is the "Auditing" line, also known as "the auditing pause", which is a complete red herring. That line probably shouldn't even be displayed when "quiet" is set. ] Still probes for about 30 seconds, though. I tried adding: hdd=noprobe hdf=noprobe hdg=noprobe hdh=noprobe but that didn't make any difference. In the boot log: Probing IDE inferface ide2... [this line doesn't appear on the screen] hde: WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0, ATA DISK drive [the box says WD1200BBRTL] ide2 at 0x9000-0x9007,0x8802 on irq 9 [30 second pause before text scrolls by too fast to read, but I assume these lines are next] Probing IDE interface ide3... Probing IDE interface ide0... ide0: Wait for ready failed before probe ! Probing IDE interface ide3... Probing IDE interface ide4... Probing IDE interface ide5... hde: max request size: 128KiB [and so on] So it still seems to be probing and pausing, just not so much. Anyway, saving a minute is great! You've been a big help. ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>