[WBEL-users] Lost all info in a file server because of LVM - HEEEELP ME, please

[Edward Rudd]

On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 04:42, Mário Gamito wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm totally desperated.
> 
> I have this file server with a total of about 200 GB of my user's files.
> 
[snip]

> 
> The machine now starts with a single partition ( / ) mounted on /dev/root
> 
>  From there i can manually mount under /mnt, partitions "/boot", "/", 
> but NOT "/home".
> Trying to mount /home, i always get the busy error.
> I cannot unmount the "/" on /dev/root, obviously.
> 
> How can i (if possible) restore the LVM info ?

The lvm info itself is on each of the LVM partitions so there are plenty
of copies.

I'd boot off the first WBEL install CD and type linux rescue, and tell
it not to mount your filesystem.
Then run "vgscan" check that the LVM device nodes are created in /dev

then run "vgchange" -a y

then run fsck -f on each of the partitions

and then test mounting them..

there should be enough utilities on the rescue disk to copy data from
one system to another, probably easiest to just using NFS

It *could* be that an initial ramdrive didn't get created correctly
during a kernel upgrade (I've had that happen with RH 7.3, and I had to
manually load my raid device, and then load up LVM, but I finally
upgraded everything to WBEL last weekend and it's been running real
nice)

And if the rescue CD finds everything you may try deleting the
/boot/initrd-* files and recreating them (mount /boot and "/" in
/mnt/sysimage)

  mount /dev/path/to/root  /mnt/sysimage
  mount /dev/path/to/boot  /mnt/sysimage/boot
  chroot /mnt/sysimage
  cd /boot
  rm initrd-*
  rpm -q kernel kernel-smp
  ## then for each kernel version in the rpm -q output run
  mkinitrd /boot/initrd-{kernel_version}.img {kernel_version}


For more, probably better help, I'd suggest asking on the lvm mailing
lists or the #lvm IRC channel on irc.freenode.net


> I have a backup from last Sunday, so, it's really not a life or death 
> case, but nevertheless it is a real annoiance, and the server is already 
> down for 24 hours :(
> 
> If it a lost case, how can i at least mount /home so that the changes 
> made since the backup until today can be transferred to another machine, 
> while i reinstall this that one that went bezerk ?
> 
> Any help would be apreciated.
> 
> Warm Regards,
> Mário Gamito
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-- 
Edward Rudd <eddie at omegaware.com>
Website http://www.outoforder.cc/