[linux-lvm] Re: Serious LVM Problem

[linux-lvm] Re: Serious LVM Problem

[TNJazzGrass]

Unfortunately, I don't have any idea what to do to
accomplish this, or if I can even do it.

I created them with Disk Druid on FC3 a couple of
years ago and pretty much hadn't touched the machine
at all since then.  When I "upgraded" to FC5 a couple
of weeks ago, I unchecked all the boxes for the data
drives (hdb, hdd, hde, hdf and hdg) so they should
have been set to "do not format, keep existing data"
but I can't remember exactly what I did with hda
(which was also part of the array - at least some of
it).  

The box has been sitting in the corner for a month or
so while I try to figure out if it's salvageable.  I
have not done anything with it since FC5 was loaded,
except attempt to attach the Physical Volumes to the
LVM using the LVM Management GUI.

So I'm not sure what you mean by "restore the LV's
back" or how I would go about doing it.

I *may* have destroyed part of the array by
reinstalling the OS on /dev/hda...although I'm not
sure how it was set up in the first place.

If this is the case though, is the data that was on
the other physical volumes still actually accessible
in some way?  At this point I'm ready to start over,
but not before I've exhausted all my options.

Thanks,
Dirk

--- Josef Whiter wrote:
 
> Usually the best thing to do in this case is to try
> and restore the LV's back
> the way they were when you created them.  You
> wouldn't happen to know exactly
> how you created them in the first place would you? 
> If you do you can try and
> recreate the LV's exactly the way they were before
> and it should show up, kind
> of like if your partition table eats it and you have
> the exact geometry of the
> partition tables before they disappeared.  Thank
> you,
> 
> Josef

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Re: [linux-lvm] Re: Serious LVM Problem

[paddy]

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 12:19:47PM -0700, TNJazzGrass wrote:
> Unfortunately, I don't have any idea what to do to
> accomplish this, or if I can even do it.
> 
> I created them with Disk Druid on FC3 a couple of
> years ago and pretty much hadn't touched the machine
> at all since then.  When I "upgraded" to FC5 a couple
> of weeks ago, I unchecked all the boxes for the data
> drives (hdb, hdd, hde, hdf and hdg) so they should
> have been set to "do not format, keep existing data"
> but I can't remember exactly what I did with hda
> (which was also part of the array - at least some of
> it).  
> 
> The box has been sitting in the corner for a month or
> so while I try to figure out if it's salvageable.  I
> have not done anything with it since FC5 was loaded,
> except attempt to attach the Physical Volumes to the
> LVM using the LVM Management GUI.
> 
> So I'm not sure what you mean by "restore the LV's
> back" or how I would go about doing it.
> 
> I *may* have destroyed part of the array by
> reinstalling the OS on /dev/hda...although I'm not
> sure how it was set up in the first place.
> 
> If this is the case though, is the data that was on
> the other physical volumes still actually accessible
> in some way?  At this point I'm ready to start over,
> but not before I've exhausted all my options.

next question is what were the PVs

if the PVs were the whole drives hdb, hdd, hde, hdf and 
hdg (and possibly also all or some of hda), then quite 
a lot of metadata should be available there.

pvscan might help you here ?

IIRC, if you have some PVs, then you should have a copy 
of the table in those that will tell you what PVs there
were in the VG.

supposing you have say 5 PVs out of 6 intact then there
is a next step, but I'm not sure what it is off the top
of my head.  I expect it will have been discussed before
on this list, so take a look at the archives.

Regards,
Paddy
-- 
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall

Re: [linux-lvm] Serious LVM Problem

[John Ward]

I would suggest trying 'gpart' for recovery:

	http://home.pages.de/~michab/gpart/


> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 08:48:58 -0700 (PDT)
> From: TNJazzGrass <tnjazzgrass@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [linux-lvm] Serious LVM Problem
> To: linux-lvm@redhat.com
> Message-ID: <20061004154858.80196.qmail@web53005.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> This is my first post here and I'm fairly
> inexperienced with Linux, so please be gentle!
> 
...
> Can anyone provide me some troubleshooting assistance
> so I can determine what to do next?  I'm not afraid of
> the command line, but I'm not all that skilled on it
> either (so I'd need instructions that are fairly
> straightforward).

[linux-lvm] Serious LVM Problem

[TNJazzGrass]

Hi all,

This is my first post here and I'm fairly
inexperienced with Linux, so please be gentle!

OK, here's the deal:  a couple of years ago I read
about LVM and decided to try it out under Fedora Core
3 as a music file server.  Had a few minor corruption
issues over the years, but nothing really serious.  I
just let the system rebuild itself on bootup and that
was that.  A few lost clusters here and there, but
nothing too bad.  The box was soon a "turn it on and
forget about it" kind of thing for me, as my primary
working environment is on a Mac these days.

Recently, I tried to install a wireless Linksys card,
as the box was going to end up in a room upstairs
where there was no internet access available.  Well,
the install completely hosed Core 3, and in doing some
followup I actually found a post that stated the
package I used often did that to Core 3!

This made me decide to upgrade to Core 5.  Like an
idiot, I tried to "upgrade" and I unchecked the LVM
drives for formatting when I did.  In hindsight I
should have removed them completely, but I didn't. 
Now I've got a fully functional Core 5, but I can't
find my LVM array anywhere on the box!  So I have no
idea if the data is still there, or if it has been
wiped clean by my rampant stupidity.

There is an LVM management in the GUI, but it doesn't
really help.  At this point all I want to do is
recover the data from the drives, if in fact it's
still there.

We're talking about an LVM of 5 x 250gb drives filled
with music and other files, plus part of a 120gb drive
that also contains the OS.

I have about 80-85% of the contents backed up on
optical media, so it's not really catastrophic if it
all goes down the tubes, but to rebuild the file
server from all those CDs and DVDs (over 400 of them!)
would be a chore.

Can anyone provide me some troubleshooting assistance
so I can determine what to do next?  I'm not afraid of
the command line, but I'm not all that skilled on it
either (so I'd need instructions that are fairly
straightforward).

Thanks, and sorry for the long first post!
Dirk

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Re: [linux-lvm] Serious LVM Problem

[Josef Whiter]

Usually the best thing to do in this case is to try and restore the LV's back
the way they were when you created them.  You wouldn't happen to know exactly
how you created them in the first place would you?  If you do you can try and
recreate the LV's exactly the way they were before and it should show up, kind
of like if your partition table eats it and you have the exact geometry of the
partition tables before they disappeared.  Thank you,

Josef

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 08:48:58AM -0700, TNJazzGrass wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> This is my first post here and I'm fairly
> inexperienced with Linux, so please be gentle!
> 
> OK, here's the deal:  a couple of years ago I read
> about LVM and decided to try it out under Fedora Core
> 3 as a music file server.  Had a few minor corruption
> issues over the years, but nothing really serious.  I
> just let the system rebuild itself on bootup and that
> was that.  A few lost clusters here and there, but
> nothing too bad.  The box was soon a "turn it on and
> forget about it" kind of thing for me, as my primary
> working environment is on a Mac these days.
> 
> Recently, I tried to install a wireless Linksys card,
> as the box was going to end up in a room upstairs
> where there was no internet access available.  Well,
> the install completely hosed Core 3, and in doing some
> followup I actually found a post that stated the
> package I used often did that to Core 3!
> 
> This made me decide to upgrade to Core 5.  Like an
> idiot, I tried to "upgrade" and I unchecked the LVM
> drives for formatting when I did.  In hindsight I
> should have removed them completely, but I didn't. 
> Now I've got a fully functional Core 5, but I can't
> find my LVM array anywhere on the box!  So I have no
> idea if the data is still there, or if it has been
> wiped clean by my rampant stupidity.
> 
> There is an LVM management in the GUI, but it doesn't
> really help.  At this point all I want to do is
> recover the data from the drives, if in fact it's
> still there.
> 
> We're talking about an LVM of 5 x 250gb drives filled
> with music and other files, plus part of a 120gb drive
> that also contains the OS.
> 
> I have about 80-85% of the contents backed up on
> optical media, so it's not really catastrophic if it
> all goes down the tubes, but to rebuild the file
> server from all those CDs and DVDs (over 400 of them!)
> would be a chore.
> 
> Can anyone provide me some troubleshooting assistance
> so I can determine what to do next?  I'm not afraid of
> the command line, but I'm not all that skilled on it
> either (so I'd need instructions that are fairly
> straightforward).
> 
> Thanks, and sorry for the long first post!
> Dirk
> 
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> 
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