unbootable system Volume group "/dev/vg00" does not exist

[paul_xedos]

Hi,

For some reason one of our machines inexplicably failed to boot as volume manager info seems to be corrupted

ioscan sees 2 disks

c0t0d0

c0t1d0

booted in linux lvm maintenance mode

# vgcfgrestore -n vg00 /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
vgcfgrestore: Volume group "/dev/vg00" does not exist in the "/etc/lvmtab" file.
vgcfgrestore: Couldn't query the state of the volume group "/dev/vg00":

no option to do strings /etc/lvmtab as booted in lvm maintenance mode but /etc/fstab looks like this

/dev/vg00/lvol3 / vxfs delaylog 0 1
/dev/vg00/lvol1 /stand vxfs tranflush 0 1
/dev/vg00/lvol4 /home vxfs delaylog 0 2
/dev/vg00/lvol5 /opt vxfs delaylog 0 2
/dev/vg00/lvol6 /tmp vxfs delaylog 0 2
/dev/vg00/lvol7 /usr vxfs delaylog 0 2
/dev/vg00/lvol8 /var vxfs delaylog 0 2

# vgscan
vgscan: Couldn't access the list of physical volumes for volume group "/dev/vg01".
Physical Volume "/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4" contains no LVM information
Physical Volume "/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5" contains no LVM information
Physical Volume "/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s6" contains no LVM information
Physical Volume "/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7" contains no LVM information

Following Physical Volumes belong to one Volume Group.
Unable to match these Physical Volumes to a Volume Group.
Use the vgimport command to complete the process.
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s2

Following Physical Volumes belong to one Volume Group.
Unable to match these Physical Volumes to a Volume Group.
Use the vgimport command to complete the process.
/dev/dsk/c0t1d0

The Volume Group /dev/vg01 was not matched with any Physical Volumes.

# vgimport /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0
vgimport: "/dev/vg00/group": not a character device

booted without lvm ( in maintenance mode) I can see the contents of the disk from /

# ls
.Xauthority auto etc mnt usr .bash_history autoold gsa net var .profile bin gsa_hp opt vpd.properties .sh_history build home sbin .ssh cmvc itminst stand .sw core lost+found tmp HOME dev mm u

I've tried running insf -e

# ls -l /dev/rdsk
total 0
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000000 May 16 11:12 c0t0d0
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000001 May 16 11:12 c0t0d0s1
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000002 May 16 14:31 c0t0d0s2
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000003 May 16 11:12 c0t0d0s3
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000004 May 16 14:33 c0t0d0s4
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000005 May 16 14:33 c0t0d0s5
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000006 May 16 14:33 c0t0d0s6
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x000007 May 16 14:33 c0t0d0s7
crw-r----- 1 bin sys 188 0x001000 May 16 11:12 c0t1d0

If anyone has any ideas where to go next in order to recover this machine that would be great

Thanks

Paul

[Matti_Kurkela]

Recovering the vg00 is the most critical one, since that must be done in LVM maintenance mode. Recovering the vg01 can usually be done while the system is running normally, or at least in the normal single-user mode.

I guess this is an Itanium system. The current system disk is probably c0t0d0: the c0t0d0s1 partition is the EFI boot partition, and c0t0d0s2 is the HP-UX system disk.

In LVM maintenance mode, here are the commands to recover vg00 in your situation:

# mkdir /dev/vg00
# mknod /dev/vg00/group c 64 0x000000
# vgimport vg00 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s2
# vgchange -a y vg00

[paul_xedos]

Superb - that's fixed it.

Or at least moved the machine on a lot further

Thanks very much

Regards

Paul