I lost some movie folders, need help to find them.

[Michael Hirsch]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Steven Vollom
<stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I changed the configuration on my Ktorrent program.  I created an
> instruction so that when downloads completed they be transferred to
> /media/sdb5/Completed Downloads.  The problem is, I meant to put them in
> /media/sda5/CompletedDownloads.
>
> I have a problem with my sdb5 partition, in fact I have lots of problems
> with the partitions on that HDD.  In any event, my computer doesn't
> think it does exist.  I intended to place the folders in sda5 not sdb5.
> The problem is that several movies were downloaded and Ktorrent was
> instructed to put them in a folder that my computer doesn't think
> exists.  They went some place, but I don't know where.  I ran a find on
> one of the titles, but nothing came up.
>
> When a user screws up, do his errors just vaporize, or does the computer
> put them some place?  And, can a person find that place?  TIA.

The two tools I use for this are "locate" and "find".

Locate is a database of files on your system.  If you know the name of
the file (say it is "myfile.mp4") try running
   locate myfile.mp4
or, if all you remember is the .mp4 extension run
   locate .mp4

If the file is quite new it might not be in the locate database yet,
so try using find:
  find / -name *.mp4
This will take a long time, and will spit out every file you have that
ends in .mp4.

Both these commands have manual pages.  Run
   <ALT>-F2 man:find
or
   <ALT>-F2 man:locate
for all the gory detail.

Michael