LVM: POWERFAILED message when using make_recovery tape

[Pamela Hammitt]

When using a make_recovery tape to recover my system disk, I get the following error:

LVM: vg[0]: pvnum=0 (dev_t=0x1f006000) is POWERFAILED.

What does this mean, and more to the point how do I fix it?

Thanks

[Slawomir Gora · Accepted solution]

Hi,

your disk is failing if you have support
contract call to HP in 99% HP will
replace disk to new one.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Disk c0t6d0 is failing. If your are extremely lucky then it's a loose connection but almost certainly you have a disk that is on the verge of failing completely.

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

It means that the system tried to access Your disk 0 of volume group vg00 and failed. After trying for 90 seconds it gave up and sent that warning message.

entering dmesg probably gives You more errors like that, You should record them.

if the disk started working again (which is unlikely) there will be a message stating 'PV0 returned to vg00' or something like that.
If both messages come and go, the disk is in an even worse shape, and should be removed from the system very soon, it spins up and down and will confuse the LVM.

Probably Your system has mirrored root disks and covered the error until You noticed it. There surely are messages in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log , from there You can find out when the problem started to occur.

first of all, open a call with hp and gather them the information they'll need/ask for.

(most important the disk size and model, You can get that from ioscan -fnkCdisk)

[Steven E. Protter]

If this killed the make_tape_recovery (should not be using make_recovery) then you must replace this disk prior to getting another DR tape written.

If the job completed, the tape is good and can be used.

POWERFAIL actually means that the disk failed to respond in a set period of time, usually 30 seconds.

This normally indicates failure, but can actually be caused if power is cut to the drive momentarily.

Its a good idea to run utilities such as mstm/cstm/xstm excercize on the disk and replace if needed.

Don't forget to back up the volume group configuration prior to any disk replacement.

SEP

[HGN]

Hi

Looks liek the disk failed and liek others suggested you can get the disk replaced by hp if you are in hp contract and then do the make recovery again.

Rgds

HGN