0 bytes on HD

[Nils Kassube]

Jim Byrnes wrote:
> On 04/08/2012 08:08 AM, Nils Kassube wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Nils, thanks for the link. Looking around I see that /Media has about
> 29Gib in it.  Looking further I see that HP/backintime has most of
> it. This confirms my suspicion that for some reason Backintime put
> its backup on the HD and not the USB drive.

Perhaps the USB disk wasn't mounted whan it happened - or mounted at a 
different location than usual. But I suppose you won't find out what was 
the reason.

> I tried to move HP to
> the trash but it was greyed out. Clicking on the backintime
> directory under /HP allowed me to move it to the trash, but when I
> opened the trash it was empty and there was no option to empty it. 
> Also, /media/HP is now empty.So about 29Gib was moved from /media/HP
> but where did it go? (HP by the way is the name of the partition on
> the usb drive used by backintime for its backups which backintime
> must have created on the HD).

I think the trash folder is somewhere in ~/.local but as I never used 
the trash, I am not familiar with it. Anyway, I suppose you had to use 
the root account to move the /HD folder to the trash - then you should 
search in /root because /root is the home folder for the root account.


Nils