LVM Will not start at boot time - SCSI disks not initialized

trouser_pilot · n00b Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Posts: 52 Location: Calgary, AB

I have this really strange problem where LVM does not start properly after a reboot. Here's what I have to do to be able to mount my volume:

1 - run vgcan
does not display any existing logical volume (hmmm, odd)

2 - Make sure my disks and are partitioned ok using fdisk /dev/sda
shows disk is partitioned with type lvm

3 - run vgscan again
shows I have an old volume called "multimedia"

4 - mount /multimedia
It works

Has anyone seen anything like this before? I have recompiled the kernel with SCSI support and the driver build in as well as LVM built in. It almost looks like the fdisk "wakes up" the drives. Any thoughts anyone?

pilla · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2004 6:59 pm Post subject:

quite odd. You could try to use EVMS tools (emerge evms, but you have to compile a new kernel with some options, see EVMS site for them) to access your LVM in compatibility mode.

I have done it and it works very well. And EVMS has some nice GUI tools to manage the LVs.
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"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin

Celegans · n00b Joined: 10 Oct 2003 Posts: 24

I encountered something like the problem you described. I found that it was necessary, when doing the pvcreate step, to point pvcreate at /dev/scsi/scsi0/bus0/disk0/lun0/part0/fragment0/item0/unit0/piece0/subsection0/track0/sector0/whatever0, rather than /dev/sda1 to get it to work correctly.

Hope that helps.
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trouser_pilot · n00b Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Posts: 52 Location: Calgary, AB

Thanks for the responses.

When creating the vg, I used webmin simply because I could point and click. Webmin displayed the disks with their full path (/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target4/lun0/part1 and so on). I have 8 disks in this vg giving me a total of about 200G (all SCSI, some 18's and some 36's). Anyhow, I've been ripping my CD collection and with about 100Gig on there, I don't think I'll be re-creating the vg. I'll try EVMS and if that doesn't work, I'll simply put together some script that will do an fdisk of one SCSI disk then vgscan.