Aside from hard disk media faults, losing the partition table is the main cause that prevents the importation of a VxVM disk. The causes of a missing partition table vary, but can include ungraceful reboots, loss of hardware connectivity and third party applications.

To recover a VxVM disk under such a circumstance, the VxVM disk can be re-labeled without initializing VxVM metadata, as long as the metadata is intact.

Here is a quick way to recover:

Warning: 

• This procedure has the potential to cause data loss or corruption. Proceed with caution, or engage Veritas Technical Support for assistance.
• The example below assumes that VxVM disk format is "cdsdisk." This is the default and is the most common format. Older systems still use the non-default "sliced" format. The method to recovery sliced disks may be different.
• By default, VxVM on Linux is using "Sun" partition tables for the disk whose size is less than 2TB and "gpt" for  disks with sizes of 2TB, and larger.

1. Use two diskgroups, with different sized disks, such as 500M (dg1:disk_1) and 2TB (dg2:disk_2).
 
2. For this example, the partition table for both disks is lost. The disk status appears as "online invalid."
 

3. Verify that the disk partition table is lost, but the VxVM metadata is still intact:
  
3.a. For disk_1, whose size is less than 2TB, and the original label is "sun."
 

3.b. For disk_2 whose size is over 2TB, and original label is "gpt"
 
4. Recover the VxVM disk by re-labeling the partition table, without initializing VxVM metadata:

4.a. For disk_1, whose original label is "sun":
 

4.b. For disk_2, whose original label is "gpt":
 

4.c. Rescan and import the disks.
 

Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM), a component of InfoScale and Storage Foundation, relies on the Linux partition table, and its own VxVM metadata (private region data), to recognize a VxVM disk. Without either of them, VxVM is unable to import the disk.