On 02/05/2014 01:59 PM, Dirk Gently wrote:
This is why I avoid LVM on ANY flavor of Unix or Linux unless the system has VERY good backups. If you lose your LVM configuration, you lose everything. In contrast, it's extremely rare to lose a partition table.
I disagree. Every disk I've lost has been - so the data rescue services tell me - damage to the outer tracks by the head withdrawing badly on shutdown/poweroff. The inner parts of the disk, if I could somehow read then, are fine. LVM doesn't need a partition table; if the data recovery people can get at it they can - somehow - 'dd' the rest of the drive and you can reconstruct a usable table using gpart - NOT gpartED! The whole point of LVM is that its portable, that the header/superblock information is 'plain text'. You can search for it by doing a dd of the partition and piping that though something like 'strings'. The problem in this thread is not with the information on the disk but with the configuration that starts up the software that allows it to be read, the mapping software etc. If Patrick, for example, took that drive and put it as a second drive on another machine, one running 12.3 for example, and vgactivated it the data would still be visible. Yes, this works. I have a 12.3 drive and a 13.1 drive in a machine. The smaller drive with 12.3 is completely BtrFS; the 13.1 1T drive has a LVM partition. I can boot the 12.3 and mount the LVM on the other drive. An example of LVM not needing a partition table; just make the whole drive LVM. -- "Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan." -- Orson Scott Card, -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org