[BlueOnyx:13562] Re: Crashed drive

Sat Aug 17 09:32:07 -05 2013

I feel your pain Gregg,

I had a BX server rebooted back at the beginning of the year.  Same LVM problem.  Driver doesn't load, LVM partition not available, kernel panic.  I still have that virtual machine sitting around waiting for me to figure out enough about LVM to get into it and rescue some data that had not been backed up yet.

I think this nonsense with LVM and RAID forced down our throats by the newest installers is bull.  The installers from Redhat sometimes don't even give you a option or choice - they just install the way they like.  And we end up with LVM, RAID, and partitions named "/dev/mapper/pdc_bdjdgijbbcp4" or some such idiocy!

I think it should all be optional, not mandatory on the install.  Sure, there are people who install Linux and don't know better.  But what says LVM is a better way to install, for those who don't know Linux?  Personally, I think its worse.  I still can't mount a LVM drive in a different machine (or by USB adapter) and get to the data.  That's why that virtual is still around - waiting for me to figure out the LVM.....

Chuck

---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Gregg K" <greggk1 at cox.net> 
To: "'BlueOnyx General Mailing List'" <blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it> 
Sent: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 07:56:14 -0700 
Subject: [BlueOnyx:13558] Re: Crashed drive

> Thanks for the replies.  I ended up installing a new BO and setting up all users. My fault for not having a recent backup.  I never thought I would have a raid go out on me like that.
> I was never able to check to see if I could load the disk partitions. When I loaded the system with a rescue disk I could sometime see the drives, maybe sdb1 and sdb2 but I was never able to load them, some kind of LVM error.   Because of those LVM issues this time around on one of the new installs I just did the install without LVM.  What is your recommendations on new installs? And why are LVMs so difficult to deal with after a crash?
>  
> 
> From: blueonyx-bounces at mail.blueonyx.it [mailto:blueonyx-bounces at mail.blueonyx.it] On Behalf Of Chuck Tetlow
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 8:50 PM
> To: BlueOnyx General Mailing List
> Subject: [BlueOnyx:13550] Re: Crashed drive
>  
> I went through the exact same thing just recently Gregg.  Hit one of my customers on two BX servers, but not three others - after a power outage long enough that the UPSes failed. 
> 
> It appeared the kernel had updated, but without updating everything.  I'm not sure if the problem was the difference in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file versus the /etc/grub.conf file.  Or if it was the startup files in /boot/ that load the LVM drivers so the kernel can boot from the LVM partition. 
> 
> But I found a simple fix.  Boot with the rescue disk and mount the partitions.  Go into the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.  Remove the "hiddenmenu" command.  Save and reboot. 
> 
> Now when you try to boot the machine - the Grub boot menu will come up.  Select the oldest kernel and boot it.  That one SHOULD work.  Once you've got the machine running, you can repair the /boot/grub/grub.conf file, its drivers in the /boot directory, and the /etc/grub.conf file.  Then the latest kernel should boot. 
> 
> Have you seen that one before Michael?? 
> 
> Chuck 
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------- 
> From: "Gregg K" <greggk1 at cox.net> 
> To: "'BlueOnyx General Mailing List'" <blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it> 
> Sent: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:28:17 -0700 
> Subject: [BlueOnyx:13549] Re: Crashed drive 
> 
> > Sorry about the lack of information earlier, I wrote from my phone.   It is 
> > stalling with the kernel panic when it's trying to load the LVM volume.  On 
> > a rescue cd I can't see the hard drive.  I assume the the LVM volume is 
> > corrupt, it won't load the /home directory. 
> > 
> > > -----Original Message----- 
> > > From: blueonyx-bounces at mail.blueonyx.it [mailto:blueonyx- 
> > > bounces at mail.blueonyx.it] On Behalf Of Michael Stauber 
> > > Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 7:52 PM 
> > > To: BlueOnyx General Mailing List 
> > > Subject: [BlueOnyx:13548] Re: Crashed drive 
> > > 
> > > Hi Greg, 
> > > 
> > > > I had major hard drive issues today. Now that I'm back up I have two 
> > > > BOs that will not boot. They have kernel panic. What can I do?  I 
> > > > downloaded a rescue cd but I still can't do a check disk on the drive. 
> > > > Please give me some ideas. Thanks 
> > > 
> > > I'm sorry to hear that. But that's not much information to assist you 
> > > with. When does the kernel panic happen? Right after boot, or when 
> > > starting services. Does it always happen after starting the same 
> > > service(s) or randomly? 
> > > 
> > > What's the matter with the rescue CD? When you boot with the BlueOnyx CD 
> > > inserted, you can choose the "Rescue Mode" option (second option from 
> > > the bottom). 
> > > 
> > > That will boot a live-cd image which allows you to choose language and 
> > > keyboard settings, allows you to configure the network and gives you the 
> > > option to mount the disks. 
> > > 
> > > If you mount the disks, you can use "chroot /mnt/sysimage" afterwards to 
> > > work on the disks as if you had booted off them directly. Well - almost. 
> > > But it allows you to install/uninstall stuff or to modify files or do 
> > > some diagnostics. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > One of the diagnostics I'd run is an "rpm -Va" to see which files were 
> > > modified from their original RPM provided state. This usually shows all 
> > > the modified config files, but if it shows modified binaries, then 
> > > that's often (but not always) a good indication that something might be 
> > > wrong with that file. 
> > > 
> > > The question would also be if the kernel panics happen while you're in 
> > > rescue mode. 
> > > 
> > > Although Kernel panics can be software related it's more common to see 
> > > them when there is flaky hardware. A screenshot of the error message 
> > > during a kernel panic could be helpful to troubleshoot this further. 
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > With best regards 
> > > 
> > > Michael Stauber 
> > > _______________________________________________ 
> > > Blueonyx mailing list 
> > > Blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it 
> > > http://mail.blueonyx.it/mailman/listinfo/blueonyx 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________ 
> > Blueonyx mailing list 
> > Blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it 
> > http://mail.blueonyx.it/mailman/listinfo/blueonyx 
> ------- End of Original Message ------- 
------- End of Original Message -------

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