AIX 5.3 failed disk issue

[nyck]

Hello,

I have an IBM P505a that has a failing disk, I have tried to umount the file systems on that disk but no luck. I have also tried to remove the volume group but it failed with the following error:-

varyoffvg datadg
0516-062 lqueryvg: Unable to read or write logical volume manager
record. PV may be permanently corrupted. Run diagnostics
0516-012 lvaryoffvg: Logical volume must be closed. If the logical
volume contains a filesystem, the umount command will close
the LV device.
0516-942 varyoffvg: Unable to vary off volume group datadg.
[lonibm4] etc # exportvg datadg
0516-764 exportvg: The volume group must be varied off
before exporting.

What I want to do is to replace the failing hdisk1 with a brand new disk. So can I just shutdown the server and remove the failed disk and replace it with the working disk and then bring the server back up again?

Cheers

Nick

 

[ogniemi]

is the datavg mirrored?

lsvg -l datadg
lsvg -p datadg

if yes, the you could unmirror the VG from the broken disk and the reducevg should work on such broken disk being without lvs...

 

[nyck]

No mirroring I'm afraid!

Any other suggestions?

I was think of shutting down to single user mode and running diag to remove the failed disk totally!

 

[ogniemi]

don't you care about the data on a failed disk? you said your VG was not mirrored... or maybe disk is already not used by any LV? - if yes, did you try reducevg?

 

[nyck]

The data can be restored from backups so thats not a problem.

There are about 9 logical volumes on this disk and I'm unable to remove any of them as the disk is very broken, I have also tried a reducevg and not luck there.

 

[ogniemi]

if the LVs on that completly btoken disk are not mirrored then you can remove them I guess (unmount corresponding filesystems and then rmlv or rmfs - you will recreate them back when you replace the broken disk)

check also example 2 on URL:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/iphcg/reducevg.htm

 

[nyck]

hello again,

rmlv and rmfs don't work either and nor does umount -f <file_system>. I think the disk is well and truly broken.

I will get it sorted tomorrow and let u know how it goes

thanks for all the advice!

 

[ogniemi]

is this the only disk in that VG?
if yes then i think you can simply power off the server replace dysk and after you power on again clean system from the old VG...

you could also try with
chvg -an theVG

and then reboot system - the VG shound't auro varyon so fses shouldn't be mounted and you could then exportvg