Grub hangs at "Starting up ..." when USB flash card reader is plugged in (on Ubuntu Hardy)

Posted by Laurence Gonsalves on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Laurence Gonsalves
Published on 2010-03-19T19:48:22Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 19:51 UTC
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grub

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ubuntu

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linux

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usb

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hang

I have a PC with Ubuntu Hardy installed. The machine boots fine unless my USB flash card reader (one of those N-in-1 readers by MediaGear) is plugged in at startup. If the reader is plugged in, the boot process proceeds as normal until it gets to the screen that says "Starting up ...". At that point it just hangs forever.

To work around this I currently leave the reader unplugged when booting, and then plug it back in after I see that Ubuntu is actually starting. This is annoying though, especially when I reboot the machine (typically for updates), forget to unplug the reader, and walk away only to come back hours later to find the machine hung.

My guess is that the presence of the reader is confusing Grub about where to find the kernel. The weird thing is that Grub is on the same drive as the kernel I want it to boot so clearly the drive is still readable even when the flash card reader is plugged in. Is there some way I can tell Grub to never go looking on the flash card reader?

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