Description of problem: After installing grub2 (replacing grub), "half" of my partitions won't boot because they specify the wrong "root=/dev/...".  It would be better to use "root=UUID=" instead.

grub2/grub.cfg has a lot of machinery to designate the correct filesystem to interpret the paths of vmlinuz and initrd.  Logically, the same machinery is needed to specify the correct filesystem for "root=" on the kernel command line; but I still see "root=/dev/hdX" instead of "root=UUID=".  "root=/dev/hdX" is unlikely to work, because /dev/hdX at OSprobe time is not necessarily the same /dev/hdX inside that running kernel.  It is especially true for older kernels that use /dev/hdX instead of /dev/sdX.  It is even more problematic when the box has both IDE and SATA drives and both old and new kernels (see Additional Information below.)


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
grub2-2.0-0.38.beta6.fc17.x86_64


How reproducible: once is too many times


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Fedora 17 grub2 bootloader, which converts previous [custom] grub1/grub.cfg.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:
----- typical bad entry in grub2/grub.cfg
menuentry 'CentOS release 5.6 (Final)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-7ef173f3-abc3-47a8-a24d-9a68e2ac95b4' {
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='hd1,msdos9'
        if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd1,msdos9 --hint-efi=hd1,msdos9 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,msdos9 --hint='hd1,msdos9'  7ef173f3-abc3-47a8-a24d-9a68e2ac95b4
        else
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7ef173f3-abc3-47a8-a24d-9a68e2ac95b4
        fi
        linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5 root=/dev/sdb9
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.img
}
-----
Notice all the work to use 7ef173f3-abc3-47a8-a24d-9a68e2ac95b4 as the filesystem for the paths to vmlinuz and initrd, but only the simplistic "root=/dev/sdb9" for the running root.  This is unlikely to work because /dev/sdb9 does not necessarily designate the same filesystem each time.

Expected results:
Use "root=UUID=":
        linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5 root=UUID=7ef173f3-abc3-47a8-a24d-9a68e2ac95b4

Additional info:  How can I force the "root=UUID=" style for the next OS probe (and all subsequent probes), regardless of what is in grub2/grub.cfg ?

-----device.map
(hd0)      /dev/sda
(hd1)      /dev/sdb
(hd2)      /dev/sdd
(hd3)      /dev/sde
(hd0,msdos1)      /dev/sda1
-----

Actual hardware:
-----
sda, hda: IDE  channel 0 master           fixed harddrive
sdb, hdb: IDE  channel 0 slave            fixed harddrive
sr0, hdc: IDE  channel 1 master           CD/DVD removable
sdc, hdd: IDE  channel 1 slave            removable ZIP100 harddrive
sdd, sda: SATA channel 0 ("5th IDE")      fixed harddrive
sde, sdb: SATA channel 1 ("6th IDE")      fixed harddrive
-----
Note the complication that sdc is hdd; and also sda means two entirely different drives depending on age of kernel (even with deterministic initialization order.)  Furthermore, *sometimes* sdb and sdd swap places (in newer kernels) based on random initialization order.  UUID is the only way to sanity.