undo LVM?

[Herman Aalderink]

On Thu, 2010-05-06 at 11:38 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:
> Herman Aalderink wrote:
>  > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ sudo lvdisplay
> > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ sudo lvdisplay
> > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ 
> > 
> > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ sudo lvscan
> > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ sudo lvscan
> > hermanbb at tabang1:~$ 
> > 
> > I dont get a response with either cmd.
> 
> Herman, am I right in thinking that you have previously used these LVM
> volumes and you believe they have data in them? If so, the following
> might help.

This is the first time I heard the term 'lvm'.
This is the first time I used lvm in my system.
 'lvm' came up when installing Ubuntu 10.04LTS Alternate 64-bit.
 (I thought it was about 'Linear Addressing' of large harddisks as I
used to do in the BIOS, LBA?)

> CAVEAT: I don't know whether this will help and it may destroy data! So
> check whether it matches your situation before using it. Don't just try
> it and hope!
> 
> I have had problems before with LVM metadata getting overwritten and I
> managed to fix it. LVM keeps backup copies of it.

Status: lvm was only installed as part of installing Ubuntu 10.04.
The install did not work, was aborted. (it might have been at the
installation of GRUB2 that the install was aborted).
Therefore lvm was never 'activated' or active beyond the installation.

> The specific commands I used are listed at
> <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/recovermetadata.html>
> 
> Note that on my system, the backup directory was /etc/lvm/backup rather
> than /etc/lvm/archive/ - It was a suse system and I don't know exactly
> where the data is on an ubuntu system.

I have studied the above LVM-HOWTO/

lvm was never asked to make a change or adjustment.
 (lvm was never activated beyond the initial installation)
Yes, the /HOME I am after is the my /HOME prior to lvm-install.

> There are some more notes about recovering LVM systems at
> <http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/appnote/19386.html>. It didn't
> excactly match what I needed in my case but it was useful reading.
> 
> Cheers, Dave

Luis/Dave: I still have a lot of 'lvm-studying' to do.

My question is: What does lvm do when installed?
-lvm changes the first sector(?) on every partition.
  (can this be reversed?)
  As is, no program or OS recognizes (the partition as partition),
except a partition-editor.
-does lvm alter the FAT upon installation? Can this be reversed?
-what else does lvm alter?

Herman in Philippines.