How can I remove a Volume Group?

Jason A. Smith

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Mar 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/4/98

to

We removed a disk from our computer without first removing the Volume Group it
was associated with (we had a simple 1 to 1 association with Volume Groups and
Physical Volumes). Now I cannot remove the Volume Group. I get this error:

bash# reducevg extdisk2 000254886efd7500
0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
0516-882 reducevg: Unable to reduce volume group.

Which seems contrary with what the man page for reducevg says about removing a
Volume Group when the Physical Volume no longer exists. Obviously I cannot
turn on the Volume Group since it no longer exists:

bash# varyonvg extdisk2
PV Status: 000254886efd7500 PVNOTFND
0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
there are no good copies of the descriptor area.

Is there any way I can remove this Volume Group from the system? We are running
AIX 4.1.5.0 here.
--
Jason Smith E-mail: smi...@rpi.edu
Physics Department Phone: (518)276-2050
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute FAX: (518)276-6680
Troy, NY 12180-3590 WWW: http://www.rpi.edu/~smithj4/

Kent Squires

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Mar 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/4/98

to Jason A. Smith

If you check in AIX Messages Guide and Reference book (also availabe
with info
explorer (info -h 0516-013)) you should be able to do a:

odmdelete -q name=extdisk2 -o CuAt

This will delete the damaged VolumeGroup from the configuration
database.

Nancy Cantu

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Mar 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/4/98

to

Jason A. Smith wrote:

> We removed a disk from our computer without first removing the Volume Group it
> was associated with (we had a simple 1 to 1 association with Volume Groups and
> Physical Volumes). Now I cannot remove the Volume Group. I get this error:
>
> bash# reducevg extdisk2 000254886efd7500
> 0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
> 0516-882 reducevg: Unable to reduce volume group.
>
> Which seems contrary with what the man page for reducevg says about removing a
> Volume Group when the Physical Volume no longer exists. Obviously I cannot
> turn on the Volume Group since it no longer exists:
>
> bash# varyonvg extdisk2
> PV Status: 000254886efd7500 PVNOTFND
> 0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
> there are no good copies of the descriptor area.
>
> Is there any way I can remove this Volume Group from the system? We are running
> AIX 4.1.5.0 here.

Since the volume group is varied off, you should be able to run "exportvg vgname"
to
remove the entire volume group definition from the odm (lvs, filesystems, etc).

-Nancy

Jon Ashare

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Mar 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/5/98

to

Reducevg is for removing a disk from a volume group consisting
of one or more disk. If the VG is varied off, then exportvg
can be used to remove the VG from active service.

If you wind up with ODM problems because the disk is no longer
available, look into using diag -a to remove the ODM reference.
Look at the bootlog and see what messages cfgmgr might be giving
you in this regard. (alog -ot boot)

Regards, Jon

In article <6dkchp$1e...@hadron4.phys.rpi.edu>, smi...@rpi.edu (Jason A.
Smith) wrote:

>We removed a disk from our computer without first removing the Volume Group it
>was associated with (we had a simple 1 to 1 association with Volume Groups and
>Physical Volumes). Now I cannot remove the Volume Group. I get this error:
>
>bash# reducevg extdisk2 000254886efd7500
>0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
>0516-882 reducevg: Unable to reduce volume group.
>
>Which seems contrary with what the man page for reducevg says about removing a
>Volume Group when the Physical Volume no longer exists. Obviously I cannot
>turn on the Volume Group since it no longer exists:
>
>bash# varyonvg extdisk2
>PV Status: 000254886efd7500 PVNOTFND
>0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
> there are no good copies of the descriptor area.
>
>Is there any way I can remove this Volume Group from the system? We are
running
>AIX 4.1.5.0 here.

--
-------------------
Jon Ashare --------->| Remove NOSPAM from address for e-mail
jo...@NOSPAMix.netcom.com --------> PGP Public Key available

Leonard Salika

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Mar 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/6/98

to

Jason A. Smith (smi...@rpi.edu) wrote:

: We removed a disk from our computer without first removing the Volume
: Group it was associated with (we had a simple 1 to 1 association with
: Volume Groups and Physical Volumes). Now I cannot remove the Volume
: Group. I get this error:

: bash# reducevg extdisk2 000254886efd7500
: 0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
: 0516-882 reducevg: Unable to reduce volume group.

: Which seems contrary with what the man page for reducevg says about
: removing a Volume Group when the Physical Volume no longer exists.
: Obviously I cannot turn on the Volume Group since it no longer exists:

: bash# varyonvg extdisk2
: PV Status: 000254886efd7500 PVNOTFND
: 0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
: there are no good copies of the descriptor area.

: Is there any way I can remove this Volume Group from the system?
: We are running AIX 4.1.5.0 here.
: --

: Jason Smith E-mail: smi...@rpi.edu

: Physics Department Phone: (518)276-2050
: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute FAX: (518)276-6680
: Troy, NY 12180-3590 WWW: http://www.rpi.edu/~smithj4/

Use exportvg. You'll probably get some messages that can be ignored about
the disk not being there. exportvg will try to remove the lv and file
system info from the appropriate places as well as the vg info. If you
were doing this with the disk still present, exportvg would want all the
file systems unmounted and the vg off-line before it would run.

Kevin Gee

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Mar 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM3/6/98

to

Leonard Salika wrote:
>
> Jason A. Smith (smi...@rpi.edu) wrote:
>
> : We removed a disk from our computer without first removing the Volume
> : Group it was associated with (we had a simple 1 to 1 association with
> : Volume Groups and Physical Volumes). Now I cannot remove the Volume
> : Group. I get this error:
>
> : bash# reducevg extdisk2 000254886efd7500
> : 0516-010 lqueryvg: Volume group must be varied on; use varyonvg command.
> : 0516-882 reducevg: Unable to reduce volume group.
>
> : Which seems contrary with what the man page for reducevg says about
> : removing a Volume Group when the Physical Volume no longer exists.
> : Obviously I cannot turn on the Volume Group since it no longer exists:
>
> : bash# varyonvg extdisk2
> : PV Status: 000254886efd7500 PVNOTFND
> : 0516-013 varyonvg: The volume group cannot be varied on because
> : there are no good copies of the descriptor area.
>
> : Is there any way I can remove this Volume Group from the system?
> : We are running AIX 4.1.5.0 here.
>

> Use exportvg. You'll probably get some messages that can be ignored about
> the disk not being there. exportvg will try to remove the lv and file
> system info from the appropriate places as well as the vg info. If you
> were doing this with the disk still present, exportvg would want all the
> file systems unmounted and the vg off-line before it would run.

If you do get messages about the disk not being there, check your
/etc/filesystems file to make sure that the entries were
properly removed. exportvg calls a command to check the VGDA
of the disk to see what file systems need to be deleted from
the /etc/filesystems file.