Converting Unused LVM Physical Volumes to VxVM Disks
LVM disks which are not part of any volume group, and contain no user data, are simply cleaned up, so that there are no LVM disk headers. Then the disks are given over to VxVM through the normal means of initializing disks.
Caution
Exercise caution while using this procedure to give disks over to VxVM. You must be absolutely certain that the disks are not in use in any LVM configuration. If there is any user data on these disks, it will be lost during conversion.
Removing LVM Disk Information
To remove LVM disk information from the disks use the following command:
# pvremove disk_name
The pvremove command will not allow the removal of disk headers which indicate a Volume Group membership for the disk. If the disk fails pvremove for this reason, you should first make certain that the group membership information is stale. Do this by using pvdisplay:
# pvdisplay disk_name
If pvdisplay finds no valid group information associated with the disk, you can overwrite the LVM headers using pvcreate:
# pvcreate disk_name
Caution
If disk_name is an alternate path to a disk that does not appear in the lvmtab file for this system, or is a disk that is in use on another system, but not imported onto this system, then do not pvcreate -f the disk. Doing so will destroy the LVM headers. You can use pvcreate without the -f option safely, as it will only succeed if the disk is not listed in the /etc/lvmtab file, and if the LVM headers indicate that it is not a member of any volume group. (That is, it has been pvcreated but not been an argument for vgcreate or vgextend.)
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