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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0009529Kali LinuxKali Package Bugpublic2026-02-05 19:102026-02-12 02:49
Reportergdijim Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
Status newResolutionopen 
Summary0009529: SATA drives failing to auto install in preseed setups, but NVME drives still work fine
Description

I have a process that our company built that has worked for over a year which is used to auto-install Kali boxes. For some reason, there's something that's been broken in the last month or two that makes it unable to automatically set up on a SATA drive, although NVME's still work fine. I get the error: gave up on waiting for root file system device, telling me /dev/sdb1 doesn't exist.

These are the partman settings I have in place that have always worked. Inexplicably, they don't on SATA drives now.

d-i partman-auto/method string regular
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic
d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true

Note: This could also be a difference in how Kali is treating Legacy Bios versus UEFI. I'm unsure.

Please let me know what troubleshooting or logging I can pull for more information.

Thanks!

-Jim

Activities

arnaudr

arnaudr

2026-02-06 08:47

manager   ~0021314

Are we talking about baremetal (ie. you install Kali on physical machines)? Is it the installation that fails, or the first boot after installation? Do you use the live image, installer image? Weekly or 2025.4 or another version?

Then you need to provide more logs. If the failure is during installation, logs are usually in the file /var/log/*. Hit Ctrl+Alt+FX (with X going from 1 to 9) to get a shell and find the log file with relevant information.

Cheers,
gdijim

gdijim

2026-02-11 22:37

reporter   ~0021323

test
gdijim

gdijim

2026-02-11 22:39

reporter   ~0021324

The machine install is a baremetal installation. It goes as it always does, but after the install completes and the machine reboots, it fails to a busybox prompt with an error: ALERT! /dev/sdb1 does not exist. Dropping to a shell.

The process uses netboot files from here: https://http.kali.org/kali/dists/kali-rolling/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/debian-installer/amd64/ and installs the latest kali rolling.

I'll work on pulling logs. Thanks very much for your assistance.

-Jim
xth4donx

xth4donx

2026-02-12 01:37

reporter   ~0021325

Sounds like an issue with partitioning.
xth4donx

xth4donx

2026-02-12 01:39

reporter   ~0021326

Or whatever you’re using to setup the hard drives, try going back to old setup to rule that out as a process of elimination before you go crazy…
gdijim

gdijim

2026-02-12 02:49

reporter   ~0021327

It is an issue with partitioning, most likely. What's different is Partman doesn't appear to be dealing with it with SATA drives like it did before.

It's kind of inexplicable why this is occurring, because the process worked for months before, and still does when dealing with NVME drives.

I need to go into the office to see what logs I can pull.

Thanks for the interest guys.

-Jim

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2026-02-05 19:10 gdijim New Issue
2026-02-06 08:47 arnaudr Note Added: 0021314
2026-02-11 22:37 gdijim Note Added: 0021323
2026-02-11 22:39 gdijim Note Added: 0021324
2026-02-12 01:37 xth4donx Note Added: 0021325
2026-02-12 01:39 xth4donx Note Added: 0021326
2026-02-12 02:49 gdijim Note Added: 0021327