I have a server running Centos 6 in a data centre that suffered a kernal panic which then prevented the OS from booting (according to the support staff in the DC). The DC support staff also suggested they could not see the partitions.
Unfortunately I have a file that I need to recover from the server.
To help me the DC have attached a KVM and the SystemRescueCD ISO so I can now access the server via ssh / VCN. I've then run TestDisk.
I can see that the partitions with lsblk:
[root@sysresccd /]# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0 7:0 0 632.2M 1 loop /run/archiso/sfs/airootfs
sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 200M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 8G 0 part
└─sda3 8:3 0 1.8T 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 693M 0 rom /run/archiso/bootmnt
But comparing that with my other similar server I can see that that has an LVM on sda3:
lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 200M 0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2 8:2 0 500M 0 part /boot
└─sda3 8:3 0 1.8T 0 part
├─VolGroup-lv_root (dm-0) 253:0 0 50G 0 lvm /
├─VolGroup-lv_swap (dm-1) 253:1 0 7.9G 0 lvm [SWAP]
└─VolGroup-lv_home (dm-2) 253:2 0 1.8T 0 lvm /home
[root@gifted-hypatia /]#
Running TestDisk it seems to see the partitions :
Partition table type (auto): Intel
Disk /dev/sda - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - ST2000DM001-1ER164
Partition table type: Intel
Analyse Disk /dev/sda - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63
Geometry from i386 MBR: head=255 sector=63
Current partition structure:
1 * Linux 0 32 33 25 159 6 409600
2 P Linux Swap 25 159 7 1069 244 7 16777216
3 P Linux 1069 244 8 243201 78 13 3889840128
But there are no files under P Linux other than lost+found.
I've been running around in circles for a day or so could someone help me understand what I would need to do to recover the partitions and the LVMs under sda3 so that I can try and recover a key file?
Thanks
Matt
Best Answer
To get LVMs visible, you need to run
on the command prompt. This will make all volume groups active.
After this, the logical block devices are visible under
/dev/mapper
, and then you can mount the drives by runningThen you can access the logical volume files via
/mnt
directory.