Fixing broken HD as part of LVM2

karnaf · 11-28-2014, 07:28 AM

Hi all,

After a system restart of my Linux Mint 16 Petra (Ubuntu 13.10), my LVM partitions are no longer available, and it looks like one of the HD is faulty.

When trying to run any LVM command (e.g. pvdisplay, lvdisplay) I get

Code:

~ $ sudo pvdisplay 
  /dev/sda: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 0: Input/output error
  /dev/sda: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4141940736: Input/output error
  /dev/sda: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4142043136: Input/output error
  /dev/sda: read failed after 0 of 1024 at 4096: Input/output error
  /dev/sda: read failed after 0 of 2048 at 0: Input/output error

When trying to run S.M.A.R.T test I get

Code:

sk_disk_smart_self_test: Operation not supported (udisks-error-quark, 0)

When trying to run some common command line tests I get

Code:

 ~ $ sudo sfdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 503 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
read: Input/output error

sfdisk: read error on /dev/sda - cannot read sector 0
 /dev/sda: unrecognised partition table type
No partitions found

 ~ $ sudo e2fsck -n /dev/sda
e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
e2fsck: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dev/sda
Could this be a zero-length partition?

~ $ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda
tune2fs 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
tune2fs: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dev/sda
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.

/dev/sda is a 2TB Seagate ST2000DM001, but the gnome-disk-utility thinks it is only 4.1GB

Any ideas on how to recover from this?

Thanks

wpeckham · 11-29-2014, 07:51 AM

Before anyting else, check the connections. You may have just lost a cable or have dust or corrosion on a contact. Dust is one of a computers worst enemies.

Assuming it IS the drive: I would replace the hard drive, init the new hard drive, add to the VG, then restore from backups. I hope you DO have backups, this kind of event is exactly what they are for.

An alternative, just replace the failed drive with a new one and do a total reload of the system. If you keep your best stuff online, this may be the quickest solution. Bonus, you get a completely current system load.

You may be able to run a deep diagnostic on the failed drive and discover just how failed it is, but it may not be recoverable at all.

karnaf · 11-30-2014, 12:00 PM

The first thing I did after finding out the HDD to be faulty was to check the connections (well, second thing after cursing my bad luck).
I then tried replacing the cable, and connecting it to a different SATA slot on the MoBo, but it didn't help either.

I also tried running dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null to see if it recognizes the correct HDD size, but it didn't (It saw the 2TB HDD as a 4.1GB HDD)

Still not giving up on restoring the data from this drive, but running out of ideas...

Thanks