Remaster crashed

[GeoffS]

Puppy 2.13 running from a CD.
I had approx 450MB of 1GB save file available.
I ran Dougal's remaster.
It asked what partition to use and I told it to use one with over 10GB of free space.
I had told it to burn a new CD.
It got to the point of asking me to check the /tmp/root/ directory. I didn't see anything wrong with it, told the program to proceed.
Shortly after that the 'free memory' went to zero.
All CPU and disk activity appeared to stop.
After waiting 10 minutes or so I rebooted (using Menu etc. Puppy was still running).
After restart the 'free memory' display indicates 54.1 MB.
Where has the 400MB gone?
Have I got the new .iso in there somewhere - I can't find it if it is.
I'm not going to try a remaster at this point.
Help please
Geoff

[HairyWill]

To see where the space has gone open a console and execute the following commands.

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# cd /initrd/pup_rw/
sh-3.00# du -h --max-depth=1
12K     ./lost+found
65M     ./root
20M     ./usr
3.3M    ./lib
1.0K    ./initrd
77K     ./etc
17K     ./tmp
1.0K    ./sys
661K    ./var
1.0K    ./dev
13K     ./mnt
127K    ./bin
89M     .

You can cd further in to this and keep doing du to see what is using the space.
Do not delete anything inside intrd it will break things horribly. Now you can move back out to the normal filesystem space and remove the problem.

[GeoffS]

HairyWill
Thanks for the reply.
Here's where my lack of understanding (too lazy to read ) takes control. I've never come to grips with how Puppy (1 or 2) works.
Following your suggestion

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sh-3.00# cd /initrd/pup_rw/
sh-3.00# du -h --max-depth=1
12K     ./lost+found
358M    ./root
125M    ./usr
2.3M    ./lib
1.0K    ./initrd
994K    ./etc
18K     ./tmp
1.0K    ./sys
316M    ./mnt
1.0K    ./dev
291K    ./var
1.0K    ./OOffice
78M     ./opt
1.0K    ./ControlPanelDB
5.0K    ./bin
2.6M    ./.wine
881M    .

Pretty clearly the offending item is /mnt. It is also approx. the amount I'm missing.

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# cd /mnt/
sh-3.00# du -h --max-depth=1
1.0K    ./hdc
3.7G    ./hda5
1.0K    ./hda10
1.0K    ./sda1
1.0K    ./hda1
1.0K    ./hda6
1.0K    ./hda7
1.0K    ./hda8
316M    ./hda3
1.0K    ./hdd5
1.0K    ./hdd1
0       ./cdrive
0       ./cdrom
0       ./data
0       ./flash
0       ./floppy
0       ./msdos
0       ./ram1
0       ./swap
0       ./zip
4.0G   

hda3 is the culprit. It is where the 'remaster' built the new system. I've already deleted that directory from the 'real' hda3. However it is still in here. Anyway, why is it in here, it shouldn't be part of the new file.
Will doing a new remaster fix the problem or make it worse? - I rather think the latter.
Also, if hda3's problems have caused me to use all that space why didn't hda5 which was also mounted ( ) when I did the remaster, or is that when remaster crashed, hda5 was just too big?
There is something odd here, /mnt total is 4G but that is not reflected in the parent.
This is my first attempt at a remaster. I'm trying to make Puppy my main system, replacing PCLinuxOS. I've been using Puppy (on and off) for almost 12 months but I've only now got a version of Puppy together that will do (almost) everything.
Really time I did some reading but a bit of help would also be appreciated!
Cheers and thanks
Geoff

[GuestToo]

if you unmount /mnt/hda3, then /mnt/hda3 should be empty ... it's just an ordinary dir like any other dir, so you can put files and folders in /mnt/hda3 when it's unmounted and empty ... if you mount a drive or partition on /mnt/hda3, putting files and folders in /mnt/hda3 should go on the mounted drive ... if /mnt/hda3 in unmounted, files and folders will be put where ever the /mnt/hda3 dir is located, which should be in the pup_save file

try unmounting /mnt/hda3, then look in the dir ... there probably should not be anything in there (be sure that /mnt/hda is actually unmounted before you delete anything, or you could delete files from the mounted drive)

[HairyWill]

hda3 is the culprit. It is where the 'remaster' built the new system. I've already deleted that directory from the 'real' hda3. However it is still in here. Anyway, why is it in here, it shouldn't be part of the new file.

Hmmm.
I wonder if hda3 got unmounted partway through the remaster process. You said you had to delete the remaster stuff from the real device so it must have been mounted to start with.

[GeoffS]

Thanks to both of you -
hda3 was never mounted by me. The remaster script must have done it for itself after I told it to use that partition. I have deleted the folder from the 'real' hda3 (it was the first thing I did after the reboot) but it is still in initrd/mnt/hda3.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am that the problem started when the script tried to swallow the 3.7GB of hda5. It died but why did it try?
With both hda3 and hda5 UNmounted would it be safe to delete them from initrd/mnt/ ? No chance that the next time hda3 & 5 were mounted that their real contents would be removed? hda5 is my life's work I do have backupssssss.
Thanks for help so far
Cheers
Geoff

[HairyWill]

If hda3 and hda5 are unmounted it is safe to delete what is inside /mnt/hda3 and /mnt/hda5. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be.

This advice comes with a full moneyback guarantee.

[GeoffS]

Will
I crossed my fingers and deleted them - it all seemed to work and all the storage has returned.
I then did the remaster again. Not quite a good test because this time I used the original remaster script, not Dougal's. No offence to Dougal but as I only wanted to burn it to CD it seemed unnecessary.
Almost all ran OK - It hung after it finished - I had to press the reset button, not even ctl-alt-bkspc was recognised.
The only difference from my previous remastering attempt was that I did not have hda5 mounted.
initrd/pup_rw/mnt/hda3/ and initrd/pup_rw/mnt/hda5/ are both empty as are all the other partitions (except home of course).
Why did hda3 and 5 get included the previous time? Does having a partition mounted cause it to be included? If so, maybe a BIG warning at the start of the script is needed.
Thanks for the help - I might be over your way later in the year but I won't need to visit you to collect the money back guarantee - thanks for the offer
Cheers
Geoff