Where is my 2G? - MC

[Matthew Flaschen]

Brian Astill wrote:
> So far, I have:
> 	ls -lar | grep hdb7
> 	fdisk -L
> 	lsof | grep deleted
> 	mount    mount -a      mount 
> 	tune2fs -l /dev/hdb7
> 	used Baobab to search for .Trash and
> 	examine the filesystem.
> The only odd thing is that baobab lists BOTH /home and  /mnt/hdb7 
> as if they are separate items, thereby falsely reporting the 
> total size.  No other output indicates any problem.
> 
> THE cause of all the trouble is Midnight Commander (from root) 
> accepting my instructions to copy /home to an 
> _unmounted_  /dev/hdb7.  It's reports of progress were entirely 
> normal, until it began to complain of lack of disk space - which 
> was nonsense, as i was copying 3.7G onto a 12G partition.
> Obviously, MC was copying to "somewhere" on hda2, which is why 
> that partition became totally full and unusable until I used a 
> live CD to copy /home to a _mounted_ /dev/hdb7, then delete the 
> original /home.
> 
> QUESTION:
> Where has MC put the files it "copied" to hda2 - and how can I 
> find and delete them?

I can only guess that these hidden files are outside the allocation
table, or something like that.  First, be sure they are taking up space;
you would have to compare free space from before and after the copy.  If
they are, I would have to recommend moving all accessible data off the
drive, reformatting, and moving it back on.  Lesson: Be /very/ careful
when running things as root.

Matthew Flaschen