Installation guide

Recovering Physical Volume Metadata

Logical volume mirror converted.

You can use the lvs command to verify that the mirror is restored.

[root@link-08 ~]# lvs -a -o +devices

LV VG Attr LSize Origin Snap% Move Log Copy% Devices

groupfs vg mwi-a- 752.00M groupfs_mlog 68.62

groupfs_mimage_0(0),groupfs_mimage_1(0)

[groupfs_mimage_0] vg iwi-ao 752.00M /dev/sdb1(0)

[groupfs_mimage_1] vg iwi-ao 752.00M /dev/sdi1(0)

[groupfs_mlog] vg lwi-ao 4.00M /dev/sdc1(0)

6.4. Recovering Physical Volume Metadata

If the volume group metadata area of a physical volume is accidentally overwritten or otherwise

destroyed, you will get an error message indicating that the metadata area is incorrect, or that the

system was unable to find a physical volume with a particular UUID. You may be able to recover the

data the physical volume by writing a new metadata area on the physical volume specifying the same

UUID as the lost metadata.

Warning

You should not attempt this procedure with a working LVM logical volume. You will lose your data

if you specify the incorrect UUID.

The following example shows the sort of output you may see if the metadata area is missing or

corrupted.

[root@link-07 backup]# lvs -a -o +devices

Couldn't find device with uuid 'FmGRh3-zhok-iVI8-7qTD-S5BI-MAEN-NYM5Sk'.

Couldn't find all physical volumes for volume group VG.

Couldn't find device with uuid 'FmGRh3-zhok-iVI8-7qTD-S5BI-MAEN-NYM5Sk'.

Couldn't find all physical volumes for volume group VG.

...

You may be able to find the UUID for the physical volume that was overwritten by looking in the /

etc/lvm/archive directory. Look in the file VolumeGroupName_xxxx.vg for the last known valid

archived LVM metadata for that volume group.

Alternately, you may find that deactivating the volume and setting the partial (-P) argument will

enable you to find the UUID of the missing corrupted physical volume.

[root@link-07 backup]# vgchange -an --partial

Partial mode. Incomplete volume groups will be activated read-only.

Couldn't find device with uuid 'FmGRh3-zhok-iVI8-7qTD-S5BI-MAEN-NYM5Sk'.

...

Use the --uuid and --restorefile arguments of the pvcreate command to restore the physical

volume. The following example labels the /dev/sdh1 device as a physical volume with the UUID