Upon some sleep, I'm guessing the issue is that the instructions I followed either assume you aren't removing the primary PV or don't care. I guess the lvm metadata is stored on there, which contains VG and LV information, and upon doing 'vgextend system /dev/newpv' it doesn't mirror that information to the new pv. So by removing the old pv, I've shot myself in the foot. I guess I should have used vgcfgbackup/vgcfgrestore (which I've now discovered). Any other light to be shone on this situation? The good news is that this is just my os/home drives, and I have a semi-recent backup of the /home part, so I'm not that worried about reinstall and restore. Clearly I'd prefer not to, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. cheers, / Brett