Unable to find device with UUID XXX.

I have an issue that I hope that the group can save me from.

I have found the Thin discussions interesting, but I am still doing the Thick thing.

OK, I had a drive that started to cause problems, would not boot without fsck, etc., and decided to replace it using pvmove.

I made myself a CD with SystemRescueCD ( sp? ) and booted the system with that.

I attached the new drive to the system before I booted. It had no PVs on it, but a set of partitions ( GPT table ) ready to be assigned.

( skipping a couple of steps )

I ran pvmove for about half of the PVs on the drive that was failing, sending them to the new drive. All seemed to be well.

THEN, the data cable on the old drive ( USB 3 ) was disturbed, and pvmove stopped, complaining that it couldn't see the drive. OK, I can fix this. I plugged the cable back in, but things didn't seem to be any better.

I stopped the system, and rebooted.

I have rebooted several times, with not completely consistent results.

A couple of times it stopped when it said that it was loading the MD drivers.

When I seem to have got the system booted properly, I do a pvs and it complains about missing UUIDs.

I did a "pvscan -u" and thought that I was seeing the UUIDs in the bottom part of the display, after it had complained about the missing ones, but I think that I was just seeing what it wanted to see, not what it was actually finding.

At this point, I seem to be dead in the water, and can't resume the pvmove process.

Can you guide me back to the light, and help me finish what I started to do, so that I can get this machine back to work?

Thank you,
Brian

BTW, pvmove is not a data rescue tool. It does not keep persistent log and it is necessary to resume synchronization between drives from scratch on reboot.

Use ddrescue to get data from disks with errors.

We need to know more to help.

Are you using md raid? If so is not using mdadm to replce and synchronize the drive better?

What distribution, version of LVM and kernel?

lsblk output would help us to see what's there. blkid output would help us to see other bits and pieces. Also vgs, lvs -avo+devices, pvs output, too, please.

My guess is some of the PVs (those on the old drive) were marked missing and would have to be readded to the VG using vgextend --restoremissing before you can continue.

Another possibility is, is lvmetad enabled and running?
If so it may be possible, there are some duplicates there, and older versions of LVM did not always warn about that.

-- Martian

Thank you. I have seen recommendations for ddrescue to other people for "dead drive" situations. Didn't think that I was there yet.

Yes, I know. That's why I asked, so that you could tell me what I need to give you.

No. Not on this machine. I have used LVM on several machines over the years, with success. This is the first time that I have tried some of the "deeper" commands.

On the main machine, or the Rescue CD?

OK, I will work on those.

OK. I will get the output from the commands above, before I try this.

No, or at least not as far as I know. I have never intentionally done so.

Brian

On the main, dead, machine, it is an Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS machine with version 3.13.0-86-generic x86_64 ( AMD 64 ) kernel.

I was able to get enough of the dead machine running to give the other version numbers.

LVM: 2.02.98(2) (2012-10-15)
Lib: 1.02.77 (2012-10-15)
Driver: 4.22.0

Brian

Oops. Wrong sender address.

This is not looking good.

I have tried to re-attach the old ( probably failing ) drive to the test machine, and I see this in dmesg:

[ 4566.743139] usb 1-5: new high-speed USB device number 27 using
ehci_hcd
[ 4566.861622] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2,
idProduct=3320
[ 4566.861625] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3,
SerialNumber=1
[ 4566.861627] usb 1-5: Product: Expansion Desk
[ 4566.861628] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Seagate
[ 4566.861629] usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 2HC015KJ
[ 4566.862054] scsi8 : usb-storage 1-5:1.0
[ 4567.865494] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Seagate  Expansion Desk
0711 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 4567.866036] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
[ 4567.869533] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Spinning up disk..............ready
[ 4578.911055] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] 732566645 4096-byte logical blocks:
(3.00 TB/2.72 TiB)
[ 4609.862126] usb 1-5: reset high-speed USB device number 27 using
ehci_hcd
[ 4624.964140] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 4640.167241] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 4640.370138] usb 1-5: reset high-speed USB device number 27 using
ehci_hcd
[ 4655.472298] usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[ 4665.690010] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[ 4672.640209] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Asking for cache data failed
[ 4672.640211] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4672.643323] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Spinning up
disk.......................................................................................................not
responding...
[ 4773.042814] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] 732566645 4096-byte logical blocks:
(3.00 TB/2.72 TiB)
[ 4779.990875] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[ 4786.941084] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Asking for cache data failed
[ 4786.941086] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through

This is a Seagate ( as you can see ) packaged USB external drive.

With these errors, would it be worthwhile trying to extract the drive from the case and try it either internally or in another case?

Thank you,
Brian

No, it is not :-(

...

I have absolutely no idea. In any case it depends on the value of data on the drive.

And it is also off topic for this list. Try googling the disk model. Then try to get help on a more appropriate place than here, e.g. on superuser, or a mailing list (like ddrescue's) where you are more likely to get answers from data rescue experts.

Good luck,

-- Martian

Agreed. That is why I haven't bothered with any more questions here. First I have to fix the hardware issue, and then get back to the pvmove, which is how this started.

Yes, good suggestions. I have local people who have had drive issues in the past and had good success with ddrescue.

I am collecting tools and replacement drives, as well as exploring all of these avenues.

Thanks again,
Brian