Yesterday I was trying using the Debian install in rescue mode in order to fix my Grub (The menu-item for Debian was suddenly gone).
Now I wasn't able to fix it and didn't have a lot of time, so I thought I'd just reinstall Debian (I know, windows style :P). Problem was that I had installed Debian using full disk encryption, thus within a LVM partition. For some reason the installer didn't recognize the volume groups, though I could mount them in rescue mode. I tried to set "use as lvm" and then select option "use current layout", but no volume groups were present anymore. Going back to rescue mode, executing a shell, I couldn't mount them anymore, as if they were gone.
So somewhere along the way the metadata for the volume groups must have been overwritten. I did some googling, but hardly found anything on the specific subject of overwrittten metadata. I've tried running testdisk, but it seems that's only for recovering partitions, not volume groups.
Last I could find was the output of pvck:
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# pvck -d -v /dev/sda5
Scanning /dev/sda5
Found label on /dev/sda5, sector 1, type=LVM2 001
Found text metadata area: offset=4096, size=192512
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=194560, size=2048, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=128512, size=66048, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=116224, size=12288, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=69120, size=47104, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=68096, size=1024, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=65024, size=3072, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=53248, size=11776, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=52736, size=512, offset2=0 size2=0
Found LVM2 metadata record at offset=51712, size=1024, offset2=0 size2=0
Now that does look like it found something right? But unfortunately I don't know enough about LVM's, so I have no idea how to use this information. Anyone who is able to guide me further?
Extra information:
output of pvscan:
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# pvscan
PV /dev/sda5 lvm2 [465.52 GiB]
Total: 1 [465.52 GiB] / in use: 0 [0 ] / in no VG: 1 [465.52 GiB]
I am testing on live Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 32-bit live-cd and I was trying to reinstall Debian Squeeze 64-bit. I am using a Acer Aspire laptop with intel i7 quad-core processor, 2x 1TB internal hard drives, ati Radeon HD 5600 Series videocard. (which is probably more information than needed :P).