special device *device-name* does not exist : LVM

OS in my server's hard disk  got corrupted. Only way to retrieve data is perform an OS reload in a new harddisk and connect the old hard disk as secondary. My drives are LVM. I have done OS reload on the new hard disk and connected the old one as secondary. When I try to mount the old hard disk, I am getting the error "special device *device-name* does not exist"

You can check the number of hard-disk connected to your server using fdisk -l.

I am trying to mount the old drive using the command.
mount /dev/VolGroup02/LogVol00   /old


/dev/VolGroup02/LogVol00  is the volomegroup name for the old hard disk.


Issue was when the new harddisk has been done with OS reload, its volume group name was  /dev/VolGroup01/LogVol00. Old harddisk volume group was already  /dev/VolGroup01/LogVol00  


When an os reload is performed, volume group for that drive will be /dev/VolGroup01/LogVol00. This will be done by default. When old harddisk volumegroup name and new harddisk volume group name became same, conflict occurs and can mount the old drive. What we have done is changed the volume group name for old drive to  /dev/VolGroup02/LogVol00

After that when we try to mount that old drive getting the error special device *device-name* does not exist.

You can fix it using the command

vgchange -ay  /dev/VolGroup02/LogVol00

"vgchange -ay" is to activate all known volume groups in the system. 
vgchange  allows you to change the attributes of one or more volume groups.



-a Controls the availability of the logical volumes in the volume group for input/output. In other
words, makes the logical volumes known/unknown to the kernel.