You were right, the data has been overwritten. It now reads thus (or rather, the first instance of human-readable volume group description reads thus; my old volume group description is still there, but further down...): """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" vol0 { id = "8kEHPL-yDuF-7ffg-GeGH-dEg6-D0Qn-lUrKoh" seqno = 1 format = "lvm2" # informational status = ["RESIZEABLE", "READ", "WRITE"] flags = [] extent_size = 8192 max_lv = 0 max_pv = 0 metadata_copies = 0 physical_volumes { pv0 { id = "WFo1On-anFb-2av8-DuRq-vKee-nJEt-ZLnu26" device = "/dev/md127" status = ["ALLOCATABLE"] flags = [] dev_size = 5820316928 pe_start = 384 pe_count = 710487 } } } # Generated by LVM2 version 2.02.95(2) (2012-03-06): Sun Mar 24 23:39:50 2013 contents = "Text Format Volume Group" version = 1 description = "" creation_host = "Microknoppix" # Linux Microknoppix 3.6.11 #12 SMP PREEMPT Thu Dec 20 04:04:10 CET 2012 i686 creation_time = 1364168390 # Sun Mar 24 23:39:50 2013 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""''' No wonder I do not see any logical volumes (well, I did not see any logical volumes before creating the volume neither...) So what should I do? lvs does not see anything, of course. I could recreate the physical volume using sudo pvcreate --uuid WFo1On-anFb-2av8-DuRq-vKee-nJEt-ZLnu26 --restorefile vol0.t xt /dev/md127 (using my old volume group description in vol0.txt, of course). Is this what I should do? Or rather remove the physical volume first? <div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 9:30 PM, Stuart D Gathman <<a href="mailto:stuart@bmsi.com" target="_blank">stuart@bmsi.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Long ago, Nostradamus foresaw that on 03/25/2013 04:46 PM, Björn <div class="im">Nadrowski would write: > Recreation of the volume group seemed a good idea as I only had one volume group on the pv and therefore I did not see how this could have destroyed anything. > The (human-readable) data at the beginning of the device /dev/md127 is still there and does display the same information. Please see my posting </div>Recreating the vg overwrites the human-readable data at the beginning of the device. You claim that it is "still there" and is the "same information". But this cannot be true because originally that information had your LV data, and now (apparently) it does not. Do you see your LVs when looking at the vg metadata with an editor?? What do you mean by "displays the same information"? Does lvs list your LVs? <div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"> _______________________________________________ linux-lvm mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-lvm@redhat.com">linux-lvm@redhat.com</a> <a href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm" target="_blank">https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm</a> read the LVM HOW-TO at <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/" target="_blank">http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/</a> </div></div></blockquote></div>