Most system administrators have mistakenly delete LVM partitions but not all is lost, using the command 'vgcfgrestore' we can recover deleted LVM partitions. Linux keeps the backup copies of lvm configuration inside /etc/lvm/archive directory.
vgcfgrestore --list LVM-GROUP-NAME list all the metadata backups made by the lvm subsystem, every time we add, delete or alter the configuration a backup is created
[root@localhost]# vgcfgrestore --list storage
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00059-1279792267.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/www-backup'
Backup Time: Thu May 1 01:25:14 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00062-473822267.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvcreate -L3G -s -n ns1-backup /dev/storage/ns1'
Backup Time: Thu May 1 01:48:44 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00063-1908990772.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/ns1-backup'
Backup Time: Thu May 1 01:53:06 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00065-149387914.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/www-backup'
Backup Time: Fri May 2 01:25:17 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00069-762515257.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/ns1-backup'
Backup Time: Fri May 2 01:52:48 2014
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00071-258460846.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/www-backup'
Backup Time: Sat May 3 01:25:16 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00074-717607964.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvcreate -L3G -s -n ns1-backup /dev/storage/ns1'
Backup Time: Sat May 3 01:48:34 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00075-510499646.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/ns1-backup'
Backup Time: Sat May 3 01:52:46 2013
File: /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00075-710999646.vg
VG name: storage
Description: Created *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/ns1'
Backup Time: Sat May 3 10:14:04 2013
To restore the LVM metadata to its state *before* executing '/sbin/lvremove -f /dev/storage/ns1' on Sat May 3 10:14:04 2013 we could execute:
[root@localhost]# vgcfgrestore -f /etc/lvm/archive/storage_00075-710999646.vg storage
[root@localhost]# lvchange -a y /dev/storage/ns1
Here we can see the partition has been recovered /dev/storage/ns1
[root@localhost]# lvdisplay /dev/storage/ns1
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/storage/ns1
LV Name ns1
VG Name storage
LV UUID Elqx0f-EB4y-O2LJ-BnJ1-Zokp-rd5q-DHsdP7
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time bk1.servervirto.com, 2014-04-22 16:54:12 -0400
LV Status available
# open 0
LV Size 10.00 GiB
Current LE 320
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 253:2