Something suddenly filled up all my drive space [SOLVED]

[enrique]

tigerflag

Understood, regards the Initial request for help, no need any more. Problem solved.

But as I said this will hunt you for the rest of your puppy life.

If for any reason you decided to recreate the problem and learn from it, just let us know. I am willing to show you how the files get lost due to not mounting the partition.

Quick way to find out:
Any way in worst case scenario just extract all the files on PuppySave using Uextract.

Good luck my friend.
enrique

[tigerflag]

Thanks, Enrique.

I understand HOW the files get lost when saving to an unmounted partition. But I don't see WHERE they are. I don't see WHERE the puppysave directory is. Even showing hidden files, I don't see it anywhere.

In / what is the PATH to this directory?

[enrique]

In / what is the PATH to this directory?

tigerflag

Quick answer is, in general files are not hidden, unless they originally where type hidden. And to your surprise the PATH is the same, yes the original PATH where you stored. I know you may think now I did not answer you.

Listen as you seems new, I do not want you to play with your current working files. Leave that Puppy out of trouble. Or at least make a backup.

Let me start with the simplest of test. Assuming you did not deleted your old PuppySave. I assume you back it up. Lets extract its contents instead of mounting it!! See the difference? If not ask.

Just in case PuppySave is a File that in fact holds a image of a Partition. We can take that File and extract its contents. This seems extreme but it is the easy just to show what it contains. If file does not show, then they are not there.

1) So 1rst you mount a Linux partition big enough to hold both the PuppySave and latter its extraction.
2) Then create a working directory and C&P there your old backup of the PyppySave that was showing FULL previously.
3) Use program called Uextract to extract the contain of Puppy Save. Depending on your Puppy, Just right click on PuppySave and select opne with "Uextract"
4) Now you will end up with a new folder named like you PuppySaved but ending with .extracted
5) Search inside that folder for your files. From what you said you where using SDA7. So I assume you will find the files at /mnt/sda7. If you know the name of a missing file you can always search from top of PuppySave.extracted

Code: Select all

find ./ | grep "nameofmisingfile"

Try that 1rst if you have a backup of PuppySave. If you like or need more help just let us know and I can strongly suggest you to create a different copy of your current Puppy ( Duplicate) so that we can then play with it. Will be waiting your response.

Hope it helps.

[enrique]

tigerflag

Uppss! I forgot.
We are asuming your PuppySave was FULL becouse it do containg misisng files.

But There is a chance your PuppySave filled up with uknown data

So now lets find out what is filling PuppySave.extracted. To do this we will use Disk Usage ( du ).

1) Assumed you extracted your PuppySave. Now You are in the working directory and you can see PuppySave.extracted.
2) Open a terminal and type:

Code: Select all

du -a | sort -n -r | head -n 100

This will show you the TOP 100 folder/files by usage. You can change 100 to what ever you want. By looking into what uses your space you can have either the Path to your files or the Folder/Files that are using your space.

Hope it helps.

[tigerflag]

I'm sorry, Enrique. I totally wiped out the previous Puppy installation and reinstalled it, a Frugal installation. It is once again installed to my small /sda2/ partition. I'm afraid I don't understand your instructions which is my fault, not yours, but I think I finally understand the puppy filesystem.

NOW I can see where my PuppySave is. It is in /mnt/sda2 at:
/initrd/mnt/dev_save/bionicpup64save-pupSaveHere.

In this directory are the following directories:
/bin/
/dev/
/etc/
/initrd/
/mnt/
/opt/
/root/
/sys/
/tmp/
/usr/
/var/

Here is what I just did as an experiment:

I unmounted /mnt/sda7. This is the big partition for storing large files.
Then I created a test file called text-file.txt.
I saved it to the unmounted /mnt/sda7.
It actually saved to the /mnt/sda7/ inside /mnt/sda2/ the bionicpup64save-pupSaveHere directory,

It looked like I was saving my files to the correct mounted directory on a large partition, but I wasn't. I was saving them to a very small partition where my O/S was installed, which was why it ran out of space.

I'm slow but I get there eventually. Lesson learned.

Thank you for your patience and help. I really appreciate it.

[enrique]

tigerflag

Yes that is then point, learn from our mistakes. I am happy for you that you have manage to move around and find where your files can hide.