Ok, entering "cp -Riv "$HOME" /media/Lexar" I get as output:

cp: cannot create directory `/media/Lexar': Permission denied

---------- Post added 09-12-11 at 10:40 AM ----------

If it makes any difference there isn't anything on this drive.

Try this then:

Wow--it produced a huge output. I recognize some of it as titles from my data.

I didn't have my drive inserted when I ran this last code.

Big problem--

That last code filled up my hard drive and messaged me that it is running out of space. I looked at my files and there is no free space left on my disk. The flash drive is still empty.

Did it recopy my data onto the hard drive?

Here is what I did:

After posting the results of entering "mount" and "/dev/sd*" with the stick first out then in for each, I extracted the stick. Then I ran

sudo cp -Riv "$HOME" /media/Lexar

...

That was the command to copy the data to your backup drive! It was supposed to be inserted!

Try inserting the drive and running the command again.

Also, forget about all the commands except the "cp" one. They were to find out the name of the drive, which we already know.

I can't seem to get rid of the recurring bubble that says "low disk space". It only gives me a button to "solve this problem." When I click on the button a pop-up gives me three alternatives:

close the pop-up
empty trash
expand with an SD card

After closing the pop-up, the bubble comes back in a short time.

Here's an important point:

In taking the drive in and out of the socket I wasn't careful to be sure I always put it in the same socket. Now I'm not sure which one to use.

How am I going to put my disk back in its original state?

Post the output of "ls -l /media/Lexar".

It's a big text that went off-window and the scroll bar isn't working so I couldn't copy all of it. Here's what is showing:

drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:39 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:41 Downloads
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2011-09-12 11:41 firefox-3.6.tar.bz2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 2011-09-12 11:41 libfreebl3.so -> /usr/lib/libfreebl3.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2011-09-12 11:41 libnspr4.so -> /usr/lib/libnspr4.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2011-09-12 11:41 libnss3.so -> /usr/lib/libnss3.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 2011-09-12 11:41 libnssckbi.so -> /usr/lib/libnssckbi.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2011-09-12 11:41 libplc4.so -> /usr/lib/libplc4.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2011-09-12 11:41 libplds4.so -> /usr/lib/libplds4.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 2011-09-12 11:41 libsmime3.so -> /usr/lib/libsmime3.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 2011-09-12 11:41 libsoftokn3.so -> /usr/lib/libsoftokn3.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2011-09-12 11:41 libssl3.so -> /usr/lib/libssl3.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2011-09-12 11:41 mozilla.pdf
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:03 Music
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:39 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:41 user
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2011-09-12 11:21 Videos

Run:

with the drive unplugged. This should remove the unwanted files.

Then, plug the drive back in, and run:

1 members found this post helpful.

Good!
My disk is back to its previous state.

Thanks!

Ok, now what about determining which slot to put my flash drive in? Does it matter? Did the "mount" et. al. commands determine this? Should I run them again? Because I don't recall which slot the drive was in when I ran "mount" et. al. I don't want to run this last code unless either it doesn't matter which slot I use, or I know which one to use.

It looks like it automatically detects the name of the drive and uses that (why else would the directory it automatically mounts to ber named "Lexar"?), so I don't think it matters.

EDIT: If you want to be really sure, run this after plugging in the drive:

and make sure the output contains "Lexar".

Yes, I was thinking the same thing about the name "Lexar". Ok, I'll try this last code again with the drive inserted.