Recovering/Restoring Boot Partition

[Don Levey]

On 2/20/2014 20:42, Chris Murphy wrote:
> 
> On Feb 20, 2014, at 4:27 PM, Don Levey <fedora-list at the-leveys.us>
> wrote:
>> 
>> Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
>> /dev/sda1              63   102760511    51380224+   7
>> HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
> 
> This starting value is from an old partition utility and is often
> incompatible with grub2, and leads to embedding problems which is one
> of the errors you're having.
> 
>> Found duplicate PV ViBcLU2wBD0Yv1UCFdxM4LQxAY4mFj1f:
> 
> Duplicate PV UUID is a problem. What do you get for pvscan?
> 
  WARNING: Failed to connect to lvmetad: No such file or directory.
Falling back to internal scanning.
  Found duplicate PV ViBcLU2wBD0Yv1UCFdxM4LQxAY4mFj1f: using /dev/sdc3
not /dev/sda3
  PV /dev/sdc3   VG vg_dauphin   lvm2 [99.81 GiB / 0    free]
  Total: 1 [99.81 GiB] / in use: 1 [99.81 GiB] / in no VG: 0 [0   ]

Yup, so there it is.  But there are only 2 physical devices, which are
hardware RAID, so as you mention below there should only be /dev/sda.
Where are the other two coming from?

This command was run inside chroot performed while booted into an F20
LiveUSB, but that shouldn't do it, as far as I can tell.
> 
>> /usr/sbin/grub2-bios-setup: warning: your core.img is unusually
>> large. It won't fit in the embedding area. 
>> /usr/sbin/grub2-bios-setup: error: embedding is not possible, but
>> this is required for RAID and LVM install.
> 
> You have some mutually incompatible factors: LVM + RAID + a first
> partition that starts on LBA 63. So at least one of those needs to be
> altered. I'd say backup whatever you need to keep and obliterate the
> installation by completely removing all partitions. It's easiest done
> with the installer's Automatic/guided partitioning by reclaiming
> space, and choosing the Delete All option; or in Manual/custom
> partitioning by deleting all existing LVs and partitions.
> 
That is sounding prudent.  Sigh, more time, and probably money, because
why do that if I can't add new hardware.  :-)

> 
>> I am wondering about the /dev/sda vs /dev/sdc thing shown above,
>> but this is a hardware RAID situation; could it be that /dev/sdc is
>> the RAID itself while sda/b are the individual parts?
> 
> No. Hardware raid will show up as a single /dev/sdX device. What
> results do you get for lsblk?
> 
> 
NAME                   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda                    		  8:0    0   149G  0 disk
&#9492;&#9472;sda3     		  8:3    0  99.8G  0 part
  &#9500;&#9472;vg_dauphin-lv_root 253:0    0  94.9G  0 lvm  /
  &#9492;&#9472;vg_dauphin-lv_swap 253:1    0     5G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
sdb                    		  8:16   1   7.6G  0 disk
&#9492;&#9472;sdb1    		  8:17   1   7.6G  0 part
sdc                   		  8:32   0   149G  0 disk
&#9500;&#9472;sdc1     		  8:33   0    49G  0 part
&#9500;&#9472;sdc2     		  8:34   0   200M  0 part
&#9492;&#9472;sdc3      	  8:35   0  99.8G  0 part
sr0                    		 11:0    1  1024M  0 rom
sr1                    		 11:1    1  1024M  0 rom
loop0                  		  7:0    0     8K  1 loop
loop1                  		  7:1    0   936K  1 loop
&#9492;&#9472;live-osimg-min    253:4    0     3G  1 dm
loop2                  		  7:2    0 565.8M  1 loop
loop3                  		  7:3    0     3G  1 loop
&#9500;&#9472;live-rw  		253:2    0     3G  0 dm
&#9500;&#9472;live-base		253:3    0     3G  1 dm
&#9492;&#9472;live-osimg-min    253:4    0     3G  1 dm
loop4                  		  7:4    0  1011M  0 loop
&#9492;&#9472;live-rw           253:2    0     3G  0 dm

(the cut and paste for the extended characters apparently didn't keep
them).  Dauphin is the machine name.

 -Don