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

[Glenn R Williams]

On Tuesday 18 November 2008 01:06:00 Michael Hirsch wrote:
> 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

Just a small note apropos the thread "Question on find inconsistency". Your 
example of using find needs to have the argument quoted to protect it from 
shell expansion:

find / -name '*.mp4'

Regards,

Glenn