VM not loading drive

[webiscore]

I've created a new VM with SCSI controller drive as know SCSI is faster and better then IDE and SATA and selected the 2nd drive attached the server /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sda then loaded the server to install Windows server 2016 however on initial setup the windows can't locate and load the drive at all.

SCSI controller was default (LSI 53C895A) then changed it to VirtIO SCSI didn't resolve the issue.

The first drive shows as following

root@pvps:~# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 5183ECAC-4E97-4E44-9EB1-FEBF2641A55F

Device       Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1       34       2047       2014 1007K BIOS boot
/dev/sda2     2048    1050623    1048576  512M EFI System
/dev/sda3  1050624 1953525134 1952474511  931G Linux LVM

The second drive which I'm using for the VMs shows as following

Disk /dev/sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 957616B1-836D-4F25-B7FF-18882A23CA64

Device     Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 1953520064 1953518017 931.5G unknown

I'm not sure if the type unknown is the issue although Proxmox was able to locate it and add it to the Storage of the Node.

Any way had such issue before what's your suggestion? Thank you!

 

[Chris]

Hi,
first you will have to create a partition on your disk and format it with a filesystem or use it with LVM so you can use it as PVE Storage, see https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#chapter_lvm.
Further, to use VirtIO SCSI with Windows machines, you will have to provide the drivers from a separate iso during installation. You can get the latest virtio drivers for Windows here https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

 

[webiscore]

When I check the pvs I see the first drive has only 16GB free out of 931GB although the server is genuinely new yet nothing installed on it. I don't understand why only this amount is free

root@pvps:~# pvs
  PV         VG       Fmt  Attr PSize   PFree
  /dev/sda3  pve      lvm2 a--  931.01g  15.99g
  /dev/sdb1  newdrive lvm2 a--  931.51g 931.51g

I was using default SCSI connection then tried the Virto but neither has worked, I think I'll shift back to SATA or IDE to avoid drivers issues.

 

[webiscore]

Is it possible merge both drives as LVM and extend the current LVM-thin space?

 

[Chris]

Is it possible merge both drives as LVM and extend the current LVM-thin space?

`vgextend <VG> <PV>` allows you to add physical volumes (PVs) to an existing volume group (VG). See `man vgextend`. For this to work you will first have to create a PV on your disk with `pvcreate, then add it to the VG with vgextend. The space is then available for logical volumes (LVs). Finally, extending the LV can finally be achieved with `lvresize --size +<size[\M,G,T]> --poolmetadatasize +<size[\M,G]> <VG>/<LVThin_pool>`.

When I check the pvs I see the first drive has only 16GB free out of 931GB although the server is genuinely new yet nothing installed on it. I don't understand why only this amount is free

The available space is managed as physical extends (PEs), which are the blocks allocated by LVs. So the PFree shows you the size of PEs not allocated by any LV. The rest of the PEs is allocated by the LVM-thin LVs created by PVE during the installation. You will see this in the output of `lvs`, which should show you 3 LVs named data, root and swap.

Some useful references:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Logical_Volume_Manager_(LVM)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LVM