Can't activate volume group. Major/minor number pair already in use. - Red Hat Customer Portal

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Issue

Attempting to activate a volume group but it is failing with this error message:
```
The requested major:minor pair (<number>) is already in use.
```
The <number> is filled in with the correct values depending on the system being run on. Example of the error as it may appear:
```
[root@localhost ~]# vgchange -ay pers-test
  The requested major:minor pair (253:5) is already used
```

Environment

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
LVM 2

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