Bug#434543: grub can't boot because it mixes up devices

[Ábel Dániel]

Package: grub
Version: 0.97-27
Severity: normal

I have a new install of etch on hdc2. Grub calls that (hd1,1):

hooloovoo:~# grub-install --recheck /dev/hda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(fd0)   /dev/fd0
(hd0)   /dev/hda
(hd1)   /dev/hdc

in /boot/grub/menu.lst, the partitions to boot from are mentioned as (hd1,x):

hooloovoo:~# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst | grep hd
# root          (hd0,0)
# root          (hd0,1)
# kernel        /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
##      kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
##      kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd1,1)
## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5
root            (hd1,1)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-486 root=/dev/hdc2 ro
root            (hd1,1)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-486 root=/dev/hdc2 ro single
# on /dev/hdc1
root            (hd1,0)
map             (hd0) (hd1)
map             (hd1) (hd0)
# on /dev/hdc7
root            (hd1,6)
map             (hd0) (hd1)
map             (hd1) (hd0)



Despite this, grub fails to boot because it doesn't find the partition to boot from.
If I hand-edit (hd1,1) to (hd0,1) before booting from the grub menu, it does boot.
This means that grub is calling hdc (hd1,x)  sometimes and (hd0,x) other times.

Any idea what might be causing this?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
APT prefers stable
APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-486
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages grub depends on:
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libncurses5                 5.5-5        Shared libraries for terminal hand

grub recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information