After noticing warnings saying "Incorrect metadata area header checksum" when using pv/lv commands I looked into what could be causing the issue and attempted to fix the issue.  I had a HDD with an ext2 /boot partition and an LVM containing an encrypted volume.  I ran sfdisk to change the second partition's filesystem code to 8e and rebooted.

After rebooting, I was shown an error when I would normally type in my encrypted volume's passphrase.  I cannot remember the exact error, but I was unable to recover.  I pulled the HDD and installed Linux onto another HDD.

I put the old HDD containing data I would like to recover in another machine and tried to see what I could do.  pvscan and lvscan would show a pv, but would report the Incorrect metadata area header checksum warning.  I tried to mount my /boot partition, but it said something along the lines of "Unknown filesystem type LVM.....".  However, if I used *-t ext2*, the /boot partition would mount without a problem.  I ran fsck.ext4 (big mistake) on the /boot partition which destroyed all of the data on that partition.  The destruction of /boot is not important to me, but the steps I took to do it may give some insight on my LVM issue.

At this point, I believe that I accidentally told sfdisk that my /boot was an LVM partition which was why I was unable to boot into my os.

Now I have the HDD  set up and when running pvdisplay I see the HDD, but it does not show a VG name and reports it as a "new physical volume".  Because it's not assigned to a VG, it does not get placed in /dev/mapper, which means I cannot run cryptsetup to unlock the drive.

Any recovery/backup information that I see being used by other people to rectify similar situations resided on the drive I am having problems with, which makes it impossible for me to use such data for recovery.

I am hoping there is a way to assign this PV to a VG without destroying any data on the disk so that I can decrypt it and export the data from the drive.

I am currently dd'ing the drive to another drive so that any suggestions I get from this mailing list can be executed without taking me further from retrieving my data.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this email and thank you for any input or suggestions you may have.