[linux-lvm] Help to mount ext3 boot partiton which reports it's LVM2_member when I try to mount it

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Lee Gold wrote:

> How can this be right? I clearly remember installing the /boot as an
> ext3 partiton.
>
> sudo pvs says:
>
> PV        VG       Fmt   Attr   PSize    PFree
>
> /dev/sda1          lvm2  a-     190.00m  190.00m
>
> /dev/sda2 system   lvm2  a-      92.97g       0
>
> I can mount the partitons in /dev/sda2 by installing LVM2 while using
> the live disk and some command-line - so I can recover the data if
> necessay so all is not lost. But I would really like to know what is
> going on and how to get the system booting again. Again the boot
> partition was ext3 and separate, why can't I access it, fdisk
> confirms...?  Thanks.

I would suspect that sda and sdb do not point to the disks you think
they do.  BIOS often swaps these around without warning.  You don't mention
your physical connection (IDE/SATA/USB/FW/iSCSI/...).  This would give a clue
as to what BIOS might have done - although it really isn't an LVM question.
This is why it is preferred to use filesystem/PV UUIDs or labels 
rather that whatever the current device address happens to be.

So it looks like you made /boot into a PV, although pvcreate should have
warned that the block device was mounted.

--
 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
     Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" - background song for
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