Error when creating vg01

[Craig_3]

Can anybody explain what the following error means and how I can get around it :

I was trying to add a new volume group through SAM and I get this message

vgcreate: Volume group "/dev/vg01" could not be created:
A volume group is already using this major and minor number.
Please check the minor number of the "group" device file.

Any ideas ?

Regards
Craig

[Madhu Sudhan_1]

Craig:
The file /dev/vgxx/group is a control file for the group which gets created. For every volume group there exists a group file in the respective volume group directories at /dev directory. This is the first file which gets created in the process of volume group creation.

Volume group with the name "vg01" is already present. Try giving another name like vg02.

Hope this helps.

......Madhu

[Alan Riggs]

You can check all current group files with:

ll /dev/vg*/group

This will show you the name of the VG and the minor number. If you do not *really* have a vg01 on this server, then it is possible a group file is left over from an earlier LVM configuration. If you are vcertain this is the case, it is safe to remove the group file and create vg01 with SAM. Alternatively (and preferably, IMO), you can create the VG using vgcreate from the command line. Personally, I would remove the file and recreate it with:

mknod /dev/vg01/group c 64 0x0?0000

just to make sure the groupo file is created properly.