mount: unknown filesystem type ‘LVM2_member’

i foobar’d a fedora 4 machine a couple of days ago and when i went to mount the disk into another machine i get this beautiful error:

mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'

here was the syntax used:

termcb:~ # mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/old/
mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'

and here was the drive :

termcb:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 14 3648 29198137+ 8e Linux LVM

so using lvm2 tools, we do a disk scan:

termcb:~ # lvmdiskscan
/dev/ram0 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram1 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/hda1 [ 101.94 MB]
/dev/sda1 [ 39.19 MB]
/dev/ram2 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/hda2 [ 27.85 GB] LVM physical volume
/dev/sda2 [ 2.01 GB]
/dev/ram3 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/sda3 [ 60.00 GB]
/dev/ram4 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/sda4 [ 86.96 GB]
/dev/ram5 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram6 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram7 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram8 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram9 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram10 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram11 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram12 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram13 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram14 [ 62.50 MB]
/dev/ram15 [ 62.50 MB]
0 disks
21 partitions
0 LVM physical volume whole disks
1 LVM physical volume

then we do a lvdisplay so we can get the LV Name and VG Name:

termcb:~ # lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
VG Name VolGroup00
LV UUID WBjpH6-Jezl-aI1z-XVSp-WzvW-qTDi-c1jkUv
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status NOT available
LV Size 26.06 GB
Current LE 834
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors 0

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
VG Name VolGroup00
LV UUID Zykaw3-WBHU-oink-38W9-KylN-7u5j-PKx8qT
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status NOT available
LV Size 1.75 GB
Current LE 56
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors 0

and also a vgdisplay to make sure it was the right drive:

termcb:~ # vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name VolGroup00
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 1
Metadata Sequence No 3
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 0
Max PV 0
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 27.84 GB
PE Size 32.00 MB
Total PE 891
Alloc PE / Size 890 / 27.81 GB
Free PE / Size 1 / 32.00 MB
VG UUID ryYRi4-mXOd-XFaW-4xnR-h1cl-hphh-5QQnlM

so at this point i re-tried to mount but using the VG Name:

termcb:~ # mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /mnt/old/
mount: special device /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 does not exist

still failure

so i did an lvscan next to see what the status of the lv drive is:

termcb:~ # lvscan
inactive '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' [26.06 GB] inherit
inactive '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01' [1.75 GB] inherit

fuck…. still inactive
thats when i stumbled across this post :
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/archiv … 64964.html

now the rest was pretty self explanatory:

modprobe dm-mod

vgchange -ay

termcb:~ # lvscan
ACTIVE '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00' [26.06 GB] inherit
ACTIVE '/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01' [1.75 GB] inherit

mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /mount/point

Success!!

this was done on a suse 10.1 box trying to mount a fedora 4 drive.

if this was gentoo it probably would have been much easier.

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  • Hats off to this post and the one who posted this.

    It really saved our day and add another pissed off admin to the list 🙂

    Regards
    Sriram

    Reply

  • THANKS A LOT!

    My gentoo box got hacked or I somehow broke it on a batched portage update or install.

    Could not login due to this error:
    -bash: /lib/tls/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.4′ not found (required by -bash)

    Finally was able to get to the system by creating a USB boot disk with the excellent UNETBOOTIN app (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#other).
    I pointed it to install-amd64-minimal-20130110.iso

    I added ‘dolvm’ to the boot options and was able to see my root partition.
    However, could not get into my media partition (got the LVM2_MEMBER error)

    Basically mirrored all the steps in this post, and finally, the “vgchange -ay” was what did the trick, and now I have access to my data and can back it up before I reinstall the OS.

    🙂

    Reply

  • Holy logic volumes!

    Many thanks, not only for showing us the solution but also to explain how you found it and which steps did you followed.

    Reply

  • Hi,
    I tried above steps,i mounted lvm and made some changes,
    After that when i remounted it,i am getting IO errors.e2fsck can’t fix it.
    have to format all of the disk,
    do you have any idea where i might have gone wrong?
    i did unmounted my partition.

    Reply

  • Hi,
    After following the above procedure also, nothing working for me 🙁

    [root@Sreelinux /]# lvmdiskscan
    /dev/ram0 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/datavg/lvol0 [ 200.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram1 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/sda1 [ 300.00 MiB]
    /dev/datavg/datalv [ 200.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram2 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/sda2 [ 2.97 GiB]
    /dev/myvg/mylv [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram3 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/sda3 [ 31.74 GiB]
    /dev/ram4 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram5 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram6 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram7 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram8 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram9 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram10 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram11 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram12 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram13 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram14 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/ram15 [ 16.00 MiB]
    /dev/sdb [ 10.00 GiB] LVM physical volume
    /dev/sdc [ 5.00 GiB] LVM physical volume
    2 disks
    20 partitions
    2 LVM physical volume whole disks
    0 LVM physical volumes
    [root@Sreelinux /]# modprobe dm-mod
    [root@Sreelinux /]# vgchange -ay
    1 logical volume(s) in volume group “myvg” now active
    2 logical volume(s) in volume group “datavg” now active
    [root@Sreelinux /]# lvscan
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/myvg/mylv’ [16.00 MiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/datavg/lvol0’ [200.00 MiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/datavg/datalv’ [200.00 MiB] inherit
    [root@Sreelinux /]# mount /dev/datavg/lvol0 /testfs
    mount: you must specify the filesystem type

    Can anyone suggest a way out for me.

    Thanks in advance.

    Sreenath

    Reply

  • Very nice. This is also a great solution for those replacing a motherboard with a new one having UEFI. The drive won’t boot with the new board, but with Ultimate Boot CD, you can carry out the steps above to recover whatever you need.

    Reply

  • Thanks man you just help me alot. Had a dead iomega NAS and with your help was able to recover all files from it

    Reply

  • Many many many thanks for your effort in posting this (very clear solution) – it really helped a far less experienced guy like me to overcome a similar issue in mounting an existing virtual drive in another CentOs VM. thank you

    Reply

  • I have a similar problem and still unresolved. Here is what I have done:
    ——
    Disk /dev/mapper/dwtlvm-dwtpe1_u01 doesn’t contain a valid partition table

    Disk /dev/mapper/dwtlvm-dwtpe1_u02: 21.0 GB, 20971520000 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2549 cylinders, total 40960000 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 524288 bytes / 1572864 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x00000000

    Disk /dev/mapper/dwtlvm-dwtpe1_u02 doesn’t contain a valid partition table
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# lvmdiskscan
    /dev/root [ 9.30 GiB]
    /dev/dm-0 [ 4.66 GiB]
    /dev/md1 [ 175.19 GiB] LVM physical volume
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_var [ 13.97 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_tmp [ 1.86 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_home [ 18.62 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 [ 19.53 GiB] LVM physical volume
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u02 [ 19.53 GiB] LVM physical volume
    4 disks
    1 partition
    0 LVM physical volume whole disks
    3 LVM physical volumes
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# modprobe dm-mod
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# vgchange -ay
    6 logical volume(s) in volume group “dwtlvm” now active
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# lvscan
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_var’ [13.97 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_tmp’ [1.86 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_swp’ [4.66 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_home’ [18.62 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u02’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# mount /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 /u0
    u01/ u02/
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# mount /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 /u01
    mount: unknown filesystem type ‘LVM2_member’
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# vgdisplay
    — Volume group —
    VG Name dwtlvm
    System ID
    Format lvm2
    Metadata Areas 1
    Metadata Sequence No 19
    VG Access read/write
    VG Status resizable
    MAX LV 0
    Cur LV 6
    Open LV 4
    Max PV 0
    Cur PV 1
    Act PV 1
    VG Size 175.19 GiB
    PE Size 4.00 MiB
    Total PE 44849
    Alloc PE / Size 20012 / 78.17 GiB
    Free PE / Size 24837 / 97.02 GiB
    VG UUID TdN3JW-IzS5-H52y-ANnM-dLSS-Rb1t-WF9QBg

    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# mount /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 /u01
    mount: unknown filesystem type ‘LVM2_member’
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# lvscan
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_var’ [13.97 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_tmp’ [1.86 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_swp’ [4.66 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_home’ [18.62 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u02’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# lvmdiskscan
    /dev/root [ 9.30 GiB]
    /dev/dm-0 [ 4.66 GiB]
    /dev/md1 [ 175.19 GiB] LVM physical volume
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_var [ 13.97 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_tmp [ 1.86 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_home [ 18.62 GiB]
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 [ 19.53 GiB] LVM physical volume
    /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u02 [ 19.53 GiB] LVM physical volume
    4 disks
    1 partition
    0 LVM physical volume whole disks
    3 LVM physical volumes
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# modprobe dm-mod
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# vgchange -ay
    6 logical volume(s) in volume group “dwtlvm” now active
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# lvscan
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_var’ [13.97 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_tmp’ [1.86 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_swp’ [4.66 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_home’ [18.62 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    ACTIVE ‘/dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u02’ [19.53 GiB] inherit
    root@dwtpe1:/home/www# mount /dev/dwtlvm/dwtpe1_u01 /u01
    mount: unknown filesystem type ‘LVM2_member’

    Reply

  • Brilliant ! Tried to access data on a RAID0 from a synology without success. This was great guidance to get it working !

    Thanks

    Reply

  • Very handy article, I tip my hat to you sir.
    Was working on building my “Perfect Linux” environment messing around with building some meh wireless drivers. Pacman’d something kernel related I thought might solve my issue and botched my startup. Booted a live Fedora 13 cd, chrooted and followed your steps. a Voila! Back in action!

    Thanks for the useful info ^_^

    Reply

  • I really really really appreciate your note. It saved my data and after 3 days has been a BIG relief…THANK YOU!

    Reply

  • best of the best , i just copied all my data , and my NAS was fucked up but i dont care.
    PissedOffAdmins

    Reply

  • Excellent information – this can be used to recover netgear readynas drives in another linux environment. I had an RNDU2000 and had to pull the drives after the OS was hacked.
    Following the process allowed me mount the drive on an opensuse box and recover the data. Once again – thanks for this post

    Reply

  • My Seagate Central 4TB failed, and there wasn’t no way to mount the data partition

    Your post helped a lot

    sudo modprobe dm-mod
    sudo vgchange -ay
    sudo lvdisplay
    sudo lvscan
    sudo fuseext2 -o ro -o allow_other /dev/vg1/lv1 mountpoint

    Reply

  • This helped me so much, thank you! I would have LOST all the accounting info without your help mounting this RAID1 drive from a Seagate Black Armor NAS 220!

    Reply

  • This post came to my rescue! Great article, and very well laid out, and I love the color scheme of your site. You saved me from a growing bitterness inside! 🙂

    Reply

  • Thank you very much for this post, I had a VM copy of a production physical system and the person had forgotten to give my account sudo root access.

    This really helped get me back into the OS with the necessary permissions.

    Kind regards,

    Barry

    Reply
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