Converting Unused LVM Physical Volumes to VxVM Disks

Removing LVM Disk Information

To remove LVM disk information from the disks use the following command:

# pvremove disk_name

The pvremove 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 lvmtab and the LVM headers indicate it is not a member of any volume group. (That is, it has been pvcreated but not been an argument for vgcreate or vgextend.)

After running pvcreate, then use pvremove to erase all vestiges of LVM disk headers.

Initializing Disks for VxVM Use

To initialize the disk for VxVM use, use the vxdiskadm command, selecting the option:

1) Add or initialize one or more disks

Or use the command:

# vxdisk init disk_name

VxVM utilities will not tamper with disks that are recognized as owned by LVM (by virtue of the LVM disk headers). If you attempt to use vxdisk init, or vxdiskadm on an LVM disk without using the pvremove command first, the command will fail.