empty hard drive, 50% used (no files??)

[Marius Gedminas]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 01:24:07AM -0700, Tom Sparks wrote:
> I have empty hard drive, but 42,584 MB is being used
> I have run sudo rm -rf *.* on the drive,

That command makes no sense: it removes all files that have a dot in the
middle of the name.  Many files in Linux don't have dots.

> same result
> 
> # Total Space: 64,001 MB
> # Space Used: 42,584 MB
> # Space Free: 21,416 MB
> 
> what can i do?

Check with du /media/yourharddisk whether there are hidden files.

Unmount the disk and check the filesystem with fsck: maybe the free
space numbers are incorrect.

HTH,
Marius Gedminas
-- 
Undergraduates owe their happiness chiefly to the fact that they are no
longer at school...The nonsense which was knocked out of them at school is
all gently put back at Oxford or Cambridge
	        -- Sir Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)
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