Perhaps it would be better to use ddrescue[1] for this (instead of dd). [1] <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/">http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/</a> <div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 12, 2014 7:21 AM, "Digimer" <<a href="mailto:lists@alteeve.ca">lists@alteeve.ca</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> On 11/01/14 11:59 PM, Tom+Dale wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> What does 'pvscan; vgscan; lvscan' show? If the LVs show 'inactive', try </blockquote> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> 'lvchange -ay <lv_path>', then 'lvscan' should show the LV as 'ACTIVE'. If so, try mounting the LV. -- Digimer Papers and Projects: <a href="https://alteeve.ca/w/" target="_blank">https://alteeve.ca/w/</a> What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without access to education? </blockquote> Here is what I got: [root@localhost ~]# pvscan /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 0: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4096: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error No matching physical volumes found [root@localhost ~]# lvscan /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error [root@localhost ~]# vgscan Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while... /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 0: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4096: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error [root@localhost ~]# lvchange -ay /dev/sda2 /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 0: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4096: Input/output error /dev/sda2: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error Volume group "sda2" not found Skipping volume group sda2 [root@localhost ~]# </blockquote> Eep, That looks like the drive might be failing. If you don't have a good backup, then you might want to stop. If the data on the drive is very valuable, I would do nothing more and call a data recovery house. If that's not feasible, then the first thing I would do is connect another drive of equal or larger size and dd the bad drive to the other drive. For example, if the bad drive comes up as /dev/sdb and the spare/backup drive comes up as /dev/sdc, you would want to run something like 'dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc bs=8k'. That will clone, byte for byte, sdb onto sdc (and erase whatever was on sdc, of course). Then set aside the failing drive and try to recover the data on sdc (possibly copy it again to a 3rd drive, just to be extra safe). This way, if something goes wrong, you can start over. -- Digimer Papers and Projects: <a href="https://alteeve.ca/w/" target="_blank">https://alteeve.ca/w/</a> What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without access to education? _______________________________________________ linux-lvm mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-lvm@redhat.com" target="_blank">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> </blockquote></div>