[mythtv-users] Re:Requesting help regarding mythtv.org LVM documentation

[Robert Kulagowski]

> Thank you for your direction. The 11 extents makes
> more sense now, although why would anyone want to
> slice up a volume group into 64 parts? Is it a
> performance issue? Why not go with one part? Just
> trying to understand LVM better.

As far as I understand, an extent is the smallest allocatable region. 
In the example, each extent is 64 megabytes.  As far as slicing a volume 
group into 64 parts, I think you're misunderstanding things and the LVM 
docs may be a better start.  http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html

> I decided to start from scratch. While in Fedora, I
> launched fdisk in a console. Removed the LVM
> directory, strange but there was an exact partition
> that referred to a Windows FS that appeared when I
> printed the partition information. Deleted both
> partitions and was left with /dev/hda1-3. 
> 
> When I try to recreate hda4 (to be LVM). It created a
> FAT partition which causes pvcreate /dev/hda4 to fail.
> The previous fdisk line was a bit confusing to me.
> Should I have run # fdisk /dev/hda4?

---

You didn't set the partition type to LVM.  Look at my /dev/hdf drive:

[root at masterbackend mythtv]# fdisk /dev/hdf

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
    (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdf: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdf1             1     30401 244196001   8e  Linux LVM

Command (m for help): l  <- this is lowercase "L" for list

  0  Empty           1c  Hidden Win95 FA 70  DiskSecure Mult bb  Boot 
Wizard hid
  1  FAT12           1e  Hidden Win95 FA 75  PC/IX           be  Solaris 
boot
  2  XENIX root      24  NEC DOS         80  Old Minix       c1 
DRDOS/sec (FAT-
  3  XENIX usr       39  Plan 9          81  Minix / old Lin c4 
DRDOS/sec (FAT-
  4  FAT16 <32M      3c  PartitionMagic  82  Linux swap      c6 
DRDOS/sec (FAT-
  5  Extended        40  Venix 80286     83  Linux           c7  Syrinx
  6  FAT16           41  PPC PReP Boot   84  OS/2 hidden C:  da  Non-FS data
  7  HPFS/NTFS       42  SFS             85  Linux extended  db  CP/M / 
CTOS / .
  8  AIX             4d  QNX4.x          86  NTFS volume set de  Dell 
Utility
  9  AIX bootable    4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 87  NTFS volume set df  BootIt
  a  OS/2 Boot Manag 4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 8e  Linux LVM       e1  DOS access
  b  Win95 FAT32     50  OnTrack DM      93  Amoeba          e3  DOS R/O
  c  Win95 FAT32 (LB 51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 94  Amoeba BBT      e4  SpeedStor
  e  Win95 FAT16 (LB 52  CP/M            9f  BSD/OS          eb  BeOS fs
  f  Win95 Ext'd (LB 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux a0  IBM Thinkpad hi ee  EFI GPT
10  OPUS            54  OnTrackDM6      a5  FreeBSD         ef  EFI 
(FAT-12/16/
11  Hidden FAT12    55  EZ-Drive        a6  OpenBSD         f0 
Linux/PA-RISC b
12  Compaq diagnost 56  Golden Bow      a7  NeXTSTEP        f1  SpeedStor
14  Hidden FAT16 <3 5c  Priam Edisk     a8  Darwin UFS      f4  SpeedStor
16  Hidden FAT16    61  SpeedStor       a9  NetBSD          f2  DOS 
secondary
17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 63  GNU HURD or Sys ab  Darwin boot     fd  Linux 
raid auto
18  AST SmartSleep  64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs         fe  LANstep
1b  Hidden Win95 FA 65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap       ff  BBT

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 8e

Command (m for help): w

---

Setting partition 4 to 8e is the step that you missed.  In my example I 
only have one partition, so it automatically picked it.  In your case it 
will prompt you to specify the partition when you type "t".