Can't remove abandoned pv!

[Shane Reber]

I have some pv's that can't be removed. The lv and vg have been removed, but the pv wasn't removed beforehand. If I try to pvcreate -f the pv, it says that it is in use by vgX. If I try to pvremove /dev/rdsk/pvX, it says that it is in use by vgX. The vg and lv are actually gone, however, so a vgreduce simply errors out that vgX can't be found.

How do I make the system understand, nicely, that this disk is no longer in use so that I can free it up for rebuilding of filesystems?

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Shane,

vgreduce -f /dev/vgX

HTH,
Jeff

[Geoff Wild]

strings /etc/lvmtab |grep pvX

If not there, then pvcreate -f /dev/rdsk/pvX and answer Yes...

Rgds...Geoff

[Shane Reber]

Guys, the vgreduce -f complains that the volume group is not active. Of course, it's not active because I removed it in SAM.

If I ignore that, and run vgchange -a y vgX just to test, it complains that a "quorum not present, or some physical volume(s) are missing."

The vg and the pv still show in a strings of lvmtab.

[Geoff Wild · Accepted solution]

vgexport /dev/vgX

Then pvcreate.

Rgds...Geoff

[Shane Reber]

Thanks Geoff! That seems to have done the job.