0 bytes on HD

[Nils Kassube]

Jim Byrnes wrote:
> Was doing a backup to a usb drive using Back In Time and came back to
> find a message that I had 0 bytes available.  I didn't realise I was
> so low on space. Looking back I think that despite me using Back In
> Time on a regular basis something changed and it tried to backup to
> the HD itself instead of the attached USB drive.
> 
> I deleted a bunch of stuff and emptied the trash.  Now the System
> Monitor says:
> 
> Total 91.8 GiB
> Free  4.7 GiB
> Available 0 bytes
> 
> I don't understand why I now have 4.7GiB free but none available.

The 4.7GiB free space looks suspiciously like the reserved space on 
ext3/4 partitions. This space is allocated for use by root to prevent 
that the system becomes unbootable. As a normal user you can't access 
that space.

> What is my best course of action?

Maybe you find a solution here:
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoverLostDiskSpace>
 
> Would rebooting allow the 4.7GiB to be recognized as available or is
> a reboot just asking for trouble at this stage?

See above - probably it wouldn't help but it wouldn't make it worse 
either.

> The disk only has 10.04LTS on it and when I set it up I only
> formatted half the disk so I have 100GiB of freespace to expand
> into.
> 
> Would it be best to boot from the install CD  and try to expand it
> first thing?

That is probably the best thing to do.


Nils