On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 05:50:21PM -0400, fsmithred wrote:
> On 08/29/2017 11:09 AM, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > I've looked at the grub.cfg file in /boot. It explicitly contains the
> > name of the old root partition in the Linux line of the stanza for the new
> > system. So after loading the kernel, it is started with the wrong
> > root partition as a parameter. This all happens before it has much of a
> > chance to look at iniitrd.
> >
>
> Is it that way after running update-grub in the new system? (and after
> moving /boot). If so, try moving grub.cfg out of the way and run
> update-grub again to create a new grub.cfg.

The problems I am having look suspiciously like those described in
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686754

Opened in 2012, it's been hanging around for years.

There's a workaround, namely, editing the grubcfg by hand.

the discussion gets around to an explaation how grub-updaate works,
and it looks as if your recommendation will work after I've dine the
hand-editing (haven't tried it yet -- first making sure I haave a
refracta rescue disk just in case). But the discussion seems a lot like
a don't-fix becuse there's a workaround.

I think that this bug is what screwed up my system a number of years ago
when two Linuxes ended up sharing some partition, resulting in utter
chos when one ended up upgrading another incompatibly.

-- hendrik