yes - kinda knew that !
- still ..
no worries and thanks for the reply

pi@turboserver:~ $ uname -a
Linux turboserver 4.9.0-8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.130-2 (2018-10-27) x86_64 GNU/Linux
pi@turboserver:~ $ /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd
/lib/ld-linux.so.3: No such file or directory
pi@turboserver:~ $

it will not boot with UUID as root. I can live with booting from the SD since it is readonly for now I need to use the PI as intended now :-) must move it to add a display at boot to see what happens. If you want help to test solutions if someone else encounters a similar problem - please contact me...

note ; These are the results but with a SD card inserted to make it boot ( only a dos partition on the SD card ) sudo blkid; /dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="BOOT" UUID="6CDA-701A" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="30ed0105-01" /dev/sda1: LABEL="Sams...

did reread but does not understand what you mean - sorry !
( I'm from Sweden - we have a lot of problems here now - I've heard )
Should / can I use UUID in cmdline.txt ?
- still don't understand why it works when I have no attached external drives ( other than USB )
/Per-Eric

In cmdline.txt?
Thought only partition Ids was valid there?
Linux newbie

/dev/sda1 was what I was using before - but what happens if the drives change USB ports ?
will they get the same device id ?
why does it work without attached drives ?

just curious ...
As it is - it actually boots much quicker

/dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="BOOT" UUID="6CDA-701A" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="30ed0105-01" /dev/sda1: LABEL="BOOT" UUID="62DD-0141" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="9231f6a4-01" /dev/sda2: UUID="76992b40-e5f6-...

Got booting from USB working - but had problems when trying to use it on one of my RPI's I've got three disks attached by a powered USB-hub and try to boot from a USB-stick attached directly to the PI. Realized that using /dev/sda was not a good option so I used PARTUUD in cmdline.txt and UUID in /e...

ever find a fix? not really - pressed shift and reinstalled :-( Nice to see the quick response to this problem ! I NEEDED to do an rpi-update to get an usb layer that sane could work with to get my scanner working. anyway - to verify that NOOBS was the cause of the problem .- I made another SD card...

vibez wrote:ever find a fix?

not really - pressed shift and reinstalled

Same happened to me
I've installed Raspbian from NOOBS !
after running "sudo rpi-update" I only get a black screen - after the NOOBS "press shift" screen
- it worked a couple of weeks ago !