[linux-lvm] pvcreate problem

Alexander Lazarevich alazarev at hera.itg.uiuc.edu
Fri Dec 6 09:26:02 UTC 2002


hmm, thanks heinz. ive got it setup now with all the lvm volumes on
/dev/sdb. fdisk sees no partitions. based off what you said, im wondering
if i should remove all the lvm volumes, do an fdisk of /dev//sdb and
create a single partition on the whole disk, and then redo the lvm stuff.

should i really do that? or is it not that big a deal? any performance
difference? or is it just that fidks and other tools won't see any
partitions on the device?

thanks for the advice!

alex
---                                                        ---
   Alex Lazarevich | Systems | Imaging Technology Group
   alazarev at itg.uiuc.edu | (217)244-1565 | www.itg.uiuc.edu
---                                                        ---


On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Heinz J . Mauelshagen wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 05:27:01PM -0600, Alexander Lazarevich wrote:
> > i just installed a fresh RH linux 7.3, with LVM 1, or whatever comes in
> > the RH distribution.
> >
> > ihe first thing i'm trying to do is pvcreate on my big RAID 5 array, which
> > is /dev/sdb:
> >
> > [root at discord root]# pvcreate /dev/sdb
> > pvcreate -- ERROR: can't initialize physical volume "/dev/sdb" of volume
> > group "homevg" without -ff
> >
> > but there is no volume group homevg:
> >
> > [root at discord root]# vgdisplay homevg
> > vgdisplay -- volume group "homevg" not found
> >
> > i am able to fdisk a partition onto /dev/sdb, and then do a pvcreate on
> > that partition, but i want to do a pvcreate on the whole free volume, no
> > partitions! i may have made a typo before, by trying to do a pvcreate
> > /dev/sdb, i instead did a vgcreate /dev/sdb. and them i might have tried
> > some other crap cause it was freeking out. i rebooted so i can see the
> > history, unless lvm keeps some kind of log file? i couldnt find one.
>
> No log file ITR.
> In general having at least one partition per device is a good idea, because
> sources like /proc/partitions or tools like fdisk find that there's something
> on the device. You loose _very_ little capacity that way.
>
> If you still want to use /dev/sdv directly "pvcreate -ff /dev/sdb;vgcreate ..."
> should do it after you remove any partition table from /dev/sdb again.
> Eventually you need a "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1" _after_
> you removed the partition table.
>
> >
> > i rebooted, etc. id prefer not to have to reinstall everything. how do i
> > fix this problem?
> >
> > any ideas?
> >
> > thanks in advance!
> >
> > alex
> > ---                                                        ---
> >    Alex Lazarevich | Systems | Imaging Technology Group
> >    alazarev at itg.uiuc.edu | (217)244-1565 | www.itg.uiuc.edu
> > ---                                                        ---
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > linux-lvm mailing list
> > linux-lvm at sistina.com
> > http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm
> > read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Heinz    -- The LVM Guy --
>
> *** Software bugs are stupid.
>     Nevertheless it needs not so stupid people to solve them ***
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
> Heinz Mauelshagen                                 Sistina Software Inc.
> Senior Consultant/Developer                       Am Sonnenhang 11
>                                                   56242 Marienrachdorf
>                                                   Germany
> Mauelshagen at Sistina.com                           +49 2626 141200
>                                                        FAX 924446
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>
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