Can't Seem to Mount a LVM Drive?

General system Newbie
1

Hello!
I’d setup an LVM for 2 external drives on my old machine. It works as intended & inserting both drives onto my current system, I’m able to mount & read/write onto it.

The problem arises when I’m trying to mount only 1 disk of the two.
With only 1 disk inserted, the LVM (on the new machine) looks like this:

pvdisplay:

  WARNING: Couldn't find device with uuid 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ.
  WARNING: VG deluge is missing PV 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ (last written to /dev/sdd1).
  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda1
  VG Name               deluge
  PV Size               465.76 GiB / not usable <3.01 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              119234
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          119234
  PV UUID               rp43V5-jTKv-Aclk-KrZU-bBZC-IQfz-WDNjbQ

  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               [unknown]
  VG Name               deluge
  PV Size               931.51 GiB / not usable 4.69 MiB
  Allocatable           yes (but full)
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              238466
  Free PE               0
  Allocated PE          238466
  PV UUID               7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ

vgdisplay:

  WARNING: Couldn't find device with uuid 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ.
  WARNING: VG deluge is missing PV 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ (last written to /dev/sdd1).
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               deluge
  System ID             
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        1
  Metadata Sequence No  5
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                1
  Open LV               0
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                2
  Act PV                1
  VG Size               1.36 TiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              357700
  Alloc PE / Size       357700 / 1.36 TiB
  Free  PE / Size       0 / 0   
  VG UUID               DdszKr-02mF-Mm6L-57Cd-4lu5-ghnI-h978iK

lvmdiskscan:

  /dev/nvme0n1p1 [     260.00 MiB] 
  /dev/sda1      [     465.76 GiB] LVM physical volume
  /dev/nvme0n1p2 [      16.00 MiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p3 [    <250.00 GiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p4 [     400.00 GiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p5 [     102.67 GiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p6 [     200.00 GiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p7 [     750.00 MiB] 
  /dev/nvme0n1p8 [     200.00 MiB]

lsblk:

NAME                     MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda                        8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
└─sda1                     8:1    0 465.8G  0 part 
  └─deluge-lvol0         254:1    0   1.4T  0 lvm

Now, after a bit of looking around, it would seem the volume isn’t active (due to not being complete), but that can be overwritten with:
vgchange -ay deluge --activationmode partial
Which results in:

PARTIAL MODE. Incomplete logical volumes will be processed.
  WARNING: Couldn't find device with uuid 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ.
  WARNING: VG deluge is missing PV 7nCraP-ViT6-pWVw-vbvH-lBoX-7Pfy-syTPTQ (last written to /dev/sdd1).
  1 logical volume(s) in volume group "deluge" now active

Finally, after this, I’m sometimes able to mount the volume with something like mount /dev/deluge/lvol0 /mnt/HDD1 but generally I’m hit with:

mount: /mnt/HDD1: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/deluge-lvol0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

or

mount: /mnt/HDD1: can't read superblock on /dev/mapper/deluge-lvol0.

presumably depending on the disk I use.

I’m aware that an LVM is supposed to be used complete, but there no way to temporarily mount individual disks?

2

I don’t see how that could work if a file’s data is spread over two physical disks.

3
1 Like
4

I’ll add a bit of background info here.
One disk contains all my data, the other is one I’ve added recently. Completely blank, no data on it yet.
Now, I was under the impression when creating the LVM, data would be written sequentially rather than interleaved between the disks like in a RAID configuration, as I’d forgone creating a striped volume.

I’d like to move certain folders over to the new disk, so later when I need to transfer data, I can simply pull out the drive with the folder I need, rather than having to connect the entire LVM to my machine.

Going through the guide, it makes sense & matches what I’ve done up till now. Though unfortunately I couldn’t get an answer on weather what I’m attempting for is possible or not.

5

This is what I want to try & avoid with certain folders, that’s why I’m trying to shift them to another disk now.

6

After looking around a lot more, I’d guess my question can be rephrased to:
“How do I mount a Physical Volume Inside an LVM rather than the entire LVM?”

7

Since the filesystem is on the logical volume, not the physical volume, I think it will be hit or miss if this is even possible. That is probably why you get:

I am not sure that lvm is the right tool for what you are trying to achieve.

8

I’m afraid you’re right. I had a partition where I dump all my files, photos & media. An LVM would’ve allowed me to retain the directory & storage allocation while simultaneously enabling future expansion simply by adding more drives.

But being able to pull out certain content to read/write is a deal breaker for me, & that just doesn’t seem to be possible in a LVM.

1 Like
9

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