Hello,
I thought it wise to back-up my drive before upgrading from Mandriva 2006 to 2007 - wrong move. I meant to put the back-up on my CD, but somehow I ended up filling my root partition, hda1. In trying to figure out what to do, I ran across this old post and tried the following command:

du -x / | sort -nr | less

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ight=hda6+full

When I used df -a before executing the above command, I received:

/dev /hda1 5.86 100%
/hda6 69G 81%

Afterwards I received:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use % Mounted On
none 0 0 0 - /proc
none 0 0 0 - /sys
/dev/hda6 69 56 13 81% /home
none 0 0 0 - /proc/bus/usb

What happened?!?! And how do I make sure I don't lose my valuable information on hda6? Is there a way out of this?
Funny enough, during boot I can see hda1 - all full; yet it doesn't show on df -a ??

Many Thanks,
Phillip

use the cd/dvd and type rescue at the boot
go to console mode
type su to become root (if not already)

see that all partitions are still there
fdisk -l

to mount hda1
mkdir /mnt/mounted_hda1
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/mounted_hda1
to see what is in there
ls -l /mnt/mounted_hda1
the command rm is for remove you could remove whatever you want

alternatively use a live cd to delete / backup whateve you want
alternatively install 2007 on hda1, if you look carefully
at options because hda6 is on another partition it will be kept safe

Thank-you Emmanuel,
I followed the instructions and in the end df -a gives me:

/dev/hda1 5.8G 100% / (mounted on)
none /proc
none /sys
/dev/hda6 81%
none /proc/bus/usb
/dev/hda1 5.8G 100% /mnt/mounted_hda1

I'd like to remove some files, but I don't know which files I can safely remove. I did clear away the /tmp and /Games.

I tried to install 2007 but I get an error about no space left on device.

-Phillip

use the advanced partition menu, that will help
I meant install with formating /dev/hda1. You will loose everything on hda1
be sure not to format hda6

before you could mount home
mkdir /home/etcback
mount /dev/hda6 /home/etcback
and you can use cp -R /etc/* /home/etcback/
to at least save /etc

I cannot tell you what file to delete...

are you sure which partition is home? do not want a disaster here
ahev you got good backuos just in case

Thank-you Emmanuel

When I went to rescue mode I used lsparts to find this:

hda1: 2.9GB
hda5: 549MB (swap)
hda6: 34GB

Why does my hda1 now say 2.9GB instead of 5.8? I went through and tried to start again, ut same problems. I haven't tried what you suggest above, but only because I want to make a back-up of some files. Is it possible for me to burn files to a CD in such a state of disrepair? If so, how do I go about doing this?


-Phillip

My take on how I got into this mess is that I inadvertently backed-up my files onto the root partition. As a result, there must be files that are simply redundant. If I can just clear these reduntant files, then I should be able to install 2007 - something I can't do now. I think anything that I care about is on my /home in hda6. Are there generic files that I can remove in the root partition that will not ruin my day? For instance, I removed the Games files, but there were few of them and so did not clear up much space - likewise /tmp.

-Phillip

You should be able to install regardless of the
fact that / is full (unless there is a bug in the installer
or the installer needs space before the format stage -
read the 2006 to 2007 upgrade thread
You are better off installing than upgrading,
so the only thing to really backup from /
is /etc so you have your old settings if you ever want
to see what they were)

the command line is ls to see files
You are better of with live cd if you are going to delete
things on / (visually easier maybe than command line if
you are not used to it)
I think this is a waste of time unless you want to be able
to rerun 2006
file you can delete
/var/log/*
I would not like to make more suggestions

surrely all these file you copied there are in a directory
it is a question of searching
There are commands like du, and df

note that if you become root and type
history
you would have the old command line when that backup went wrong
(if you used command line)

another trick maybe would be
boot with rescue
chroot to /mnt/mntedhda1
urpme openoffice
(I have never tried, but in theory should work)

The idea is to desinstall a big package (openoffice is ~100 Mo)
and then reboot system. Then 2006 should boot

You are better off installing than upgrading,

What is the difference between an install and upgrade? I thought that install would write over files that I had on there - start from scratch kind of idea.

so the only thing to really backup from /
is /etc so you have your old settings if you ever want
to see what they were)

How do I backup /etc ?


By the by, regardless of how this all turns out - though with your assistance,I am optimistic - I think it is quite remarkable the number of people you help out in these forums, kudos!

-Phillip

Live cd's are great for this.

Using an archive tool, like ark, or cli tools bzip, and compress the whole thing to one contiguous file and burn it to cd.

correct

but when "installing" there is also an option called upgrade
that try to reuse old settings and match existing packages
with new version

you need to mount home 1st, assuming rescue mode
mkdir /mnt/myhome
mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/myhome
ls -l /mnt/myhome (check hda6 is what you think it is)
mkdir /home/etcback
cp -R /etc/* /myhome/etcback/
ls -l /myhome/etcback/

man cp for more info
If you are new to linux, unless you setup fancy things,
I doubt you will ever use /etcback, but you have important things there
like /etc/resolv.conf

ta.
Am not the 1st, not the last
Just hope one day you help other as well
Best way to learn

I keep hinting at this

PHEW!!! Ok, well, I took a bit of a chance (loss of hundreds of photos) and used my installation dvd to reformat hda1 - root partition - and then reinstalled 2006. Luckily, I still have my photos, bookmarks and all important business. I'm going to burn some cds of the above mentioned goodies, and then install 2007.

Thank-YOU Emmanuel for your help - and others.

-Phillip