how do i activate a logical volume 2

[generaal]

I am trying to create a logical volume. I go throught all the steps in smitty, then i get the following error message:

0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
0516-822 mklv: Unable to create logical volume.

Now, i try to use the varyonvg command to activate the logical volume, then i get the following message:

PV Status: hdisk1 00523af09b1fd3ab PVNOTFND
0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
there are no good copies of the descriptor area.

I am not sure if this problem could be hardware related. I have looked on the Net, but I cannot find any good descriptions of this error message (none that make any sense in plain english)

 

[khalidaaa]

What's the output of lspv?

You should have a varied-on volume group to create an lv on it!

If you are already aware of the above then i guess there could be a VGDA or Qurom problem!

How many disks are on the volume group?

 

[generaal]

Right, this is the output from lspv:

hdisk0 00c29808a7876f55 rootvg
hdisk2 none None

It lists the other volume group in smitty, but does not seem to pick it up,

Filesystem 1024-blocks Free %Used Iused %Iused Mounted on
/dev/hd4 65536 47940 27% 2370 8% /
/dev/hd2 1048576 265904 75% 24264 10% /usr
/dev/hd9var 65536 56376 14% 718 5% /var
/dev/hd3 32768 31636 4% 80 1% /tmp
/dev/hd1 98304 55096 44% 556 3% /home
rs520:/vw1 9699328 3049988 69% 79451 4% /export/nfs/rs520/vw1
/dev/lv00 1441792 499972 66% 33096 10% /usr/catia
/dev/lv01 606208 394156 35% 5963 4% /home/catadm
/dev/lv02 24576 23668 4% 39 1% /home/catusr

there should be 2 LVs on the one I am trying to activate.

 

[p5wizard]

You probably have suffered a disk crash, and now hdisk1 is no longer available. I'm guessing that hdisk1 is the only PV member of the volume group in question. If the disk is not available, then you no longer CAN varyon that volume group and cannot define a LV on it...

check error log (errpt|grep hdisk1, errpt -a|more)

other commands you may find useful:
lsdev -Ccdisk
lspv


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[khalidaaa]

I agree with p5wizard

I just got this from the manual of varyonvg:

If the volume group cannot be varied on due to a loss of the majority of
physical volumes, a list of all physical volumes with their status is displayed.
To varyon the volume group in this situation, you will need to use the force
option.

The varyonvg will fail to varyon the volume group if a majority of the physical
volumes are not accessible (no Quorum). This condition is true even if the
quorum checking is disabled. Disabling the quorum checking will only ensure that
the volume group stays varied on even in the case of loss of quorum.

The volume group will not varyon if there are any physical volumes in PV_MISSING
state and the quorum checking is disabled. This condition is true even if there
are a quorum of disks available. To varyon on in this situation either use the
force option or set an environment variable MISSINGPV_VARYON to TRUE (set this
value in /etc/environment if the volume group needs to be varied with missing
disks at the boot time).

In the above cases (using force varyon option and using MISSINGPV_VARYON
variable), you take full responsibility for the volume group integrity.

I hope you are not suffering disk crash any way!

Is that disk local or SAN connected?

 

[generaal]

I think it is local. We have just about given up on any data stored in there, and we will have to re-install that software. My next question is, can i bring that lv back up if i use the force options you described, and will it still be useable?

 

[p5wizard]

You can try force-varyon, but if it is the only disk in the VG and it is "missing", then it probably won't do any good...


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[generaal]

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

 

[khalidaaa]

again back to p5wizard request. Is there any errors in the errpt -a? if so could you list them?

If the disk is corrupted, then the only way is to replace it with a new one and restore using your latest backup!

 

[generaal]

The only errors listed date to a few weeks ago, it just took me a long time to work my way through all the other errors to get to this one.

 

[p5wizard]

I'd try to run diagnostics on the disk also...


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[kHz]

# lqueryvg -g `getlvodm -v rootvg` -At -p hdisk1
# getlvcb -AT hd2
# od -c /dev/hd2 # the first blocks should return AIX LVCB
# dd skip=128 if=/dev/hdisk1 count=10 2>/dev/null |od -cx| grep 11000 # if there is a ? in one of the first columns then it is gone. (I think this is the correct syntax off the top of my head)

These will verify whether the VGDA, VGSA, and LVCBs are intact and reoverable.

But the disk is probably gone as mentioned above. So,
# reducevg -df rootvg 00523af09b1fd3ab
This will remove the LVs from the ODM and from the VGDA of the remaining disks in the volume group.