There must be a problem, it is not possible to skip reading /etc/inittab on soft reboot in your setup described above.
Last steps of Linux boot process for the kernel side (if initramfs setup is not used):
- Try to mount root filesystem under / directory
- If an
init=boot argument exists, try to load and execute that binary - Otherwise, just run
/sbin/init
If you’re using busybox /sbin/init is a link to busybox itself. When busybox’s init start to work, it reads the contents of the /etc/inittab and execute the tasks which starts with ::sysinit: sequentially.
If you deeply analyze your situation, it will be more clear to you.