[linux-lvm] LVM recovery / Xen / Testdisk

[mitch at bitblock.net]

Hello - first post here - I was referred to this group from xen-users.

I started on xen-users, and then went to the testdisk forum. My issue is one of my own causing but has lead to the discovery of a problem I'm trying to understand / resolve in interpreting lvm structure...

The full history is here:

Xen-users http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/xen/users/278066
Testdisk http://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/trying-to-recover-windows-ntfs-disk-from-xen-hba-lvm-vol-t2252.html

In short, I allowed xen to reinitialize an HBA storage repository. I lost an important VM / some data which I thought was backed up.

I have used photorec to recover VHD files, and some of them work / can be read by remounting them in xen or by using a tool like winimage.

But some of them are damaged. I want to hopefully recover a few files from these LVMs

In some cases I suspect the LVM may be fragmented and testdisk may have recovered separate lvm files when there was really supposed to be a single file.

I'm wondering if there is any way to stitch them back together. Testdisk is normally able to pull partition table data and then navigate through a damaged hard drive / partition / disk image to allow recovery of files and folders.

In the case of my VHD files however it doesn't work. I expect it's got something to do with the way the VHD stores information like the partition table etc. Testdisk doesn't see a normal partition table / is unable to recognize the partition and when I try to force it too my options for recovery are limited.

I've been seeking help from the testdisk forum - but can anyone confirm that lvm2 is what xen is using?

Are there any other recovery tools I should be aware of for this scenario particularly anything on recovering from damaged vhd's or relinking parts of vhd's to their parents, etc.?

Any documentation / pointers would be appreciated! If there is an alternative to using testdisk / treating this like a "hardware failure" and more like a logical reconstruction that would be great, however my attempt at googling / readking lvm2 command man pages didn't show me anything obvious...

Thank you in advance!!

Thank you!

Mitch.
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