How to fix device excluded by a filter

Fix “device excluded by a filter” LVM error.

Sometimes you can encounter “device excluded by a filter” LVM error.

$ sudo pvcreate /dev/sdb

Device /dev/sdb excluded by a filter.

This error is caused by the leftover partition table.

$ sudo wipefs --no-act /dev/sdb

DEVICE OFFSET     TYPE UUID LABEL
sdb    0x200      gpt
sdb    0x3ffffe00 gpt
sdb    0x1fe      PMBR

Use dry-run mode to see the operations that will be performed.

$ sudo wipefs --all --no-act /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x00000200 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdb: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x3ffffe00 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdb: 2 bytes were erased at offset 0x000001fe (PMBR): 55 aa
/dev/sdb: calling ioctl to re-read partition table: Success

Create backup and perform these operations to remove partition table signatures.

$ sudo wipefs --all --backup /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x00000200 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdb: 8 bytes were erased at offset 0x3ffffe00 (gpt): 45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54
/dev/sdb: 2 bytes were erased at offset 0x000001fe (PMBR): 55 aa
/dev/sdb: calling ioctl to re-read partition table: Success

List stored signatures.

$ sudo bash -c "find ~/ -maxdepth 1 -name 'wipefs-sdb-*.bak'"

/root/wipefs-sdb-0x00000200.bak
/root/wipefs-sdb-0x3ffffe00.bak
/root/wipefs-sdb-0x000001fe.bak

Initialize physical volume for use by the LVM.

$ sudo pvcreate /dev/sdb

Physical volume "/dev/sdb" successfully created.

In case of emergency

Use created backup to generate commands required to undo wipe operation.

$ sudo bash -c 'find ~/ -maxdepth 1 -name "wipefs-sdb-*.bak"| while read file; do addr=$(echo $file | sed "s/.*wipefs-.*-\(.*\).bak/\1/"); echo sudo dd if=${file} of=/dev/sdb seek=$((${addr})) bs=1 conv=notrunc; done'

sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x00000200.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=512 bs=1 conv=notrunc
sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x3ffffe00.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=1073741312 bs=1 conv=notrunc
sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x000001fe.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=510 bs=1 conv=notrunc

Execute these commands.

$ sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x00000200.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=512 bs=1 conv=notrunc

8+0 records in
8+0 records out
8 bytes copied, 0.000480618 s, 16.6 kB/s

$ sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x3ffffe00.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=1073741312 bs=1 conv=notrunc

8+0 records in
8+0 records out
8 bytes copied, 0.000370395 s, 21.6 kB/s

$ sudo dd if=/root/wipefs-sdb-0x000001fe.bak of=/dev/sdb seek=510 bs=1 conv=notrunc

2+0 records in
2+0 records out
2 bytes copied, 0.000264022 s, 7.6 kB/s

See wipefs manual page. This utility is part of the util-linux package.