HDD Inexplicably Full

[hensandpat at earthlink.net]

NoOp wrote:
> On 03/24/2010 12:22 PM, James Tappin wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:13:34 +0200
>> Rafiq Hajat <ipi.malawi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> RH> I know that I had at least 30gb free but this has appeared out of
>> RH> the blue to my complete perplexity.
>> RH> I'm using Karmic 9.10 on a Compaq 6829s laptop and, aside from a few
>> RH> ongoing hassles with grub2, have generally been quite happy with it.
>> RH> I don't know what exactly info you would need to get to the bottom
>> RH> of this quandary and will humbly await your guided instructions to
>> RH> acquire the relevant data to assist diagnosis.
>> RH> I am anxiously standing by awaiting your helping hands.
>>
>> The most obvious first step is to find out where the excess stuff is. 
>> df -h in the top level directory of the full partition will list the
>> amount of space used in each directory and that should show you where
>> the problem lies -- then an ls -l on the suspect directory(ies) should
>> show what's in them and how big it is (for home directories ls -la may
>> be needed if there are last hidden files).
>>
>>     
>
> And an added question for Rafiq: do you by chance use a backup
> application? In particular the Simple Backup app?
>
>
>
>   
Had and have simular problem, in our case, windows vista, opensuse etc, 
The backup is in the first partitions and when this one is full 
and....., cannot expand, sitting right against vista,... bingo .. 
windows went to sleep, allthough opensuse is still there. with locked up 
windows and files John