i have a partition /dev/hda3, ext3 formatted and mounted to a directory on root /share. when i look at it in KDiskFree it shows it is 8.3gig in size which is correct but then it says there is 7.8 gig free. nothing is in the /share directory and nothing else is on that partition. where is the missing 500meg? ls -a on the directory shows only . and .. and ls -l says there are 0 items in it.

Post the output of this command:

(how much disk partitions are free and report in human understandable terms)

df -h

# How are the hard drives partitioned
fdisk -l
# How much free/used drive space
df -h
# How much used drive space in a directory
du -sh /path/to/directory
# Show disk usage by current directory and all subdirectories
du | less

here goes

df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 9.2G 1.5G 7.3G 17% /
tmpfs 253M 0 253M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda3 8.3G 33M 7.9G 1% /share

fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20020396032 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38792 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 1938 976720+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda2 * 1939 21314 9765504 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 21315 38792 8808912 83 Linux

du -sh
4.0K /share

du | less
4 .

there are no hidden files in /share that i can see (yes i'm viewing hidden files) and there are no files or directories in /share. i can understand some disk space being used for partition tables or what not (not sure how ext3 works like that if it does at all) but when it says i am using 33 meg but there is another 400-500 meg missing, i kind of wonder, what happened to it.

anyone have any thoughts on this?

I know Windows filesystems require 15% of their space to be free for it's use, but I can't remember off hand what the Linux overhead for the journaling.

I'm sure it's better explained here:

Advanced filesystem implementor's guide (requires registration)

# Understanding Linux Filesystem layout:
Directory Navigation Help File
Filesystems, Directories, and Devices Help File
Proper Filesystem Layout