Access Old Home Directory - USB enclosure - LVM

Jim Cornette fc-cornette at insight.rr.com
Mon Jan 2 20:20:09 UTC 2006


Robert L Cochran wrote:

> Jim Cornette wrote:
>
>> Robert L Cochran wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2005-April/msg01943.html
>>>>
>>>> From an earlier posting someone suggested to run the following 
>>>> commands to activate and later deactivate LVM volumes in rescue 
>>>> mode. I used these commands on an external USB drive to get at data 
>>>> from a previous installation and it worked. You might be able to 
>>>> get at your data in this way.
>>>> Jim
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> lvm lvscan
>>>> lvm vgchange -ay
>>>
>>
> I'd like to follow up on this. Here is what I did.
>
> 1. Booted machine in rescue mode, using my install DVD, with the 
> external USB drive containing my other FC4 system  plugged in.

I booted into my regular installation. I then ran 'lvm vgchange -ay' to 
activate the lvm volumes. I think that I did a pvscan to get the 
information about the available lvms.

> 2. Executed 'chroot /mnt/sysimage'.

This would simple activate your system without all of the normally 
loaded tools. This is good information for if you needed to mount your 
system in rescue mode in the future.

> 3. Ran 'lvm lvscan' as suggested. I got this output.
>
> ACTIVE 'dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' [370.53 GB] inherit
> ACTIVE 'dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01' [1.94 GB] inherit
>
> The above logical volumes seem to reference my 400 Gb hard drive in my 
> new, upgraded system, not the 60 Gb drive which is connected by USB.

The 'vgchange -ay' command might be needed to add additional volumes 
that might have labelling which conflict with your newly mounted system.
lvscan might then recognize the volumes on the USB enclosure drive.

>
> I then unplugged the USB cable for my 60 Gb drive and re-plugged it 
> in. Executing 'lvm lvscan' then got me this output:
>
> /dev/sdb1: open failed: no such device or address
> /dev/sdb2: open failed: no such device or address
> /dev/sdb3: open failed: no such device or address

/dev/sdb3 seems to be where your LVM is located.

>
> ACTIVE 'dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' [370.53 GB] inherit
> ACTIVE 'dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01' [1.94 GB] inherit
>
> Question: should I have manually mounted the partitions before issuing 
> 'lvm lvscan'?

I am not sure if it is possible to mount a partition with lvm volumes on 
it. I would imagine that filesystem is not correct would result from 
attempting to mount /dev/sdb3.

>
> ************ (Removed rescue CD, boot back into Fedora Core 4 on new 
> system) ************
>
> I then read the entire LVM how-to for lvm2 on tldp.org. It doesn't 
> offer practical advice for this situation -- rescuing data from an 
> older lvm-based system.


Go figure, real life situations never seem to match intended use for 
systm designs.

>
> I also read 'man lvm', with no better results.
>
> I then checked Bugzilla. There are 124 (or is it 125?) bugs listed for 
> LVM.
>
> It is looking more and more like I'll need to take out my 400 Gb drive 
> and substitute my 60 Gb drive/120 Gb drive, and boot into that system, 
> all to recover a little more data. Perhaps I need to quit using LVM.


Not adding a detour to those that use LVM, but adding a "me too" to LVM 
usage.
If you do have to take drastic measures and re-install the drive from 
the USB enclosure, add this fact to the list. I did get this to work for 
once and recovered data from the drive contained in the USB enclosure. I 
really don't recall the exact steps that I took to get at the drive. It 
mounted and I did retrieve the information from the drive.

Since you have LVMs on your new system also, probably the 
dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 identity is the same for both disks. It might 
have worked for me because I had no new LVMs on the running system.

Give system-config-lvm a try and see if you can manipulate the USB drive 
on a running system. If not, you may be out of luck and need to swap the 
drive out and backup your desired information onto a DVD or other media.

I'm sure the information is on the LVM, but in what format, I don't 
know. (dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 also or different)

Jim

>  
> Thanks
>
> Bob Cochran
>


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