lvm2/man/pvcreate.8

.TH PVCREATE 8 "LVM TOOLS" "Sistina Software UK" \" -*- nroff -*-
.SH NAME
pvcreate \- initialize a disk or partition for use by LVM
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pvcreate
.RB [ \-d | \-\-debug ]
.RB [ \-f [ f ]| \-\-force " [" \-\-force ]]
.RB [ \-y | \-\-yes ]
.RB [ \-h | \-\-help ]
.RB [ \-v | \-\-verbose ]
.RB [ \-V | \-\-version ]
.IR PhysicalVolume " [" PhysicalVolume ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pvcreate
initializes
.I PhysicalVolume
for later use by the Logical Volume Manager (LVM).  Each
.I PhysicalVolume
can be a disk partition, whole disk, meta device, or loopback file.
For DOS disk partitions, the partition id must be set to 0x8e using
.BR fdisk "(8), " cfdisk "(8), "
or a equivalent.  For
.B whole disk devices only
the partition table must be erased, which will effectively destroy all
data on that disk.  This can be done by zeroing the first sector with:
.sp
.BI "dd if=/dev/zero of=" PhysicalVolume " bs=512 count=1"
.sp
Continue with
.BR vgcreate (8)
to create a new volume group on
.IR PhysicalVolume ,
or
.BR vgextend (8)
to add
.I PhysicalVolume
to an existing volume group.
.SH OPTIONS
See \fBlvm\fP(8) for common options.
.TP
.BR \-f ", " \-\-force
Force the creation without any confirmation.  You can not recreate
(reinitialize) a physical volume belonging to an existing volume group.
In an emergency you can override this behaviour with -ff.
.TP
.BR \-u ", " \-\-uuid " uuid"
Specify the uuid for the device.  
Without this option, \fBpvcreate\fP generates a random uuid.
All of your physical volumes must have unique uuids.
You need to use this option to restore a backup of LVM metadata onto 
a replacement device - see \fBvgcfgrestore\fP(8).
.TP
.BR \-y ", " \-\-yes
Answer yes to all questions.
.SH Example
Initialize partition #4 on the third SCSI disk and the entire fifth
SCSI disk for later use by LVM:
.sp
.B pvcreate /dev/sdc4 /dev/sde
.sp
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR lvm "(8), " vgcreate "(8), " vgextend "(8), " lvcreate "(8), "
.BR cfdisk "(8), " fdisk "(8), " losetup "(8), " mdadd "(8), "
.BR vgcfgrestore "(8)"