Mounting LVM Using Ubuntu Live CD
Overview
My system died recently and I needed to access the data on the hard drives. I had two 1TB drives in a logical volume which I needed to pull data off of. Luckily the drivers were in tact.
Live CD
Using a Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop CD or USB(prefered), boot into Ubuntu and select the try Ubuntu option. Wait for everything to load up.
LVM
Fortunately GParted is available as part of the live CD but LVM is not. Start a a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T. Run the following command to install LVM:
sudo apt-get install lvm2
Mounting LVM
Perform a scan of the HDD to see if a LVM is available:
sudo pvscan
It should list all pysical disks which contain a LVM volume
Perform a scan on the disks to find volumes. This must be done otherwise lvgchange will not be recognized:
vgscan
To list all the groups use:
sudo vgdisplay -v
The group name should be on the line:
Finding volume group “mygroup”
where mygroup is the group name in the volume.
Activate the group using the following command if you have one group:
lvgchange -a y
otherwise use append the LV Name under — Logical Volume — section to the above command. For example:
lvgchange -a y /dev/mygroup/firstvolume
Once active it is available to mount just like any other drive using the LV Name E.g:
sudo mount /dev/mygroup/firstvolume /media/floppy0
where /media/floppy0 is an existing folder usually used when a floppy disk is inserted however as long as it’s not in use, it is fine to use as a mount point.
Summary
LVMs are slightly more tricky when it comes to recovery than just a single disk but it’s still accessible.
How to mount LVM partition on Ubuntu
