pvcreate fails with "Can't open <device> exclusively. Mounted filesystem?" on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Issue

  • pvcreate throws an error:

    # pvcreate /dev/mapper/mpath1
    Can't open /dev/mapper/mpath1 exclusively.  Mounted  filesystem?
    
  • For vgcreate also below error message is displayed:

    # vgcreate vg1 /dev/mapper/mpath1
      Can't open /dev/mapper/mpath1 exclusively.  Mounted filesystem?
      Unable to add physical volume '/dev/mapper/mpath1' to volume group 'vg1'.
    

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4, 5 or 6
  • LVM2
    • Creating a physical volume with pvcreate

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