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Old 04-14-2015, 07:52 AM   #1
Joshmccullough
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Help: Can't seem to access all of my HDD partitions.....


I recently wiped Windows 8 off my laptop and installed Linux Mint; I selected the 'wipe everything/install Linux Mint' option, and I've got Mint working....but:

My Mint partition is about 45GB; it's a 1TB drive, and I've got a partition or two that I can't seem to do anything with. I can't expand my Mint partition; I've tried putzing around with the other partition and split it into two, but I can only look at them, can't save things to them. When I use Dolphin and put in a test file with just some random text on one then reboot my computer, it's gone.

Here's the results of a df -k command:

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 48991048 11277504 35201880 25% /
none 4 0 4 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 4014028 4 4014024 1% /dev
tmpfs 805912 1352 804560 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 4029560 15044 4014516 1% /run/shm
none 102400 8 102392 1% /run/user
/dev/sda3 118782228 60984 112664388 1% /media/joshandkaren/8495904f-0de8-4cf9-b169-2c86a79ade35
/dev/sda1 776984056 70296 737422180 1% /media/joshandkaren/9db04a44-79dd-470f-8d54-508c3d852657


When I do an ls -al command on either /media folder on either partition, there's also a + sign at the very end of the listing (drwx...+) and I don't know what that means or signifies.


I'm obviously not hurting for space on my main Mint partition, but it would be nice to have the whole drive, of course. Does anyone have any notion of what I did wrong and how I might be able to 'open up' my partitions in order to get that space back/useable? I'm not averse to reinstalling/wiping everything and starting again; also, I'd goofed something up when trying to dual-boot Win8 and Mint, so I just decided to wipe everything and stick with Mint solo. I had an instance where I was only able to bring up the 'grub rescue' prompt, whereupon I'd simply reinstalled Mint from the DVD, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it.....

Any input would be appreciated, thank you!
 
Old 04-14-2015, 10:35 AM   #2
JeremyBoden
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delete

Last edited by JeremyBoden; 04-14-2015 at 10:36 AM.
 
Old 04-14-2015, 10:43 AM   #3
JeremyBoden
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I think you will find
Code:
df -h
more readable!

How big is your extended partition - I'm guessing that's sda4?
For a more pictorial version, running gparted is a good idea.
 
Old 04-14-2015, 10:56 AM   #4
Head_on_a_Stick
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Please post the output of:
Code:
# parted -l
 
Old 04-14-2015, 11:58 AM   #5
Joshmccullough
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My Gparted results are attached; I'll run the parted -l results tomorrow when I get home (I've got work and then class until 10PM EST tonight) and post those results.

I greatly appreciate everyone's input/help; I know just enough to paint my way into a corner sometimes, it's always nice to get input from people who know what they're doing
Attached Thumbnails
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Name:	Gparted_Results.png
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ID:	18109  
 
Old 04-14-2015, 11:58 AM   #6
Joshmccullough
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyBoden View Post
I think you will find
Code:
df -h
more readable!

How big is your extended partition - I'm guessing that's sda4?
For a more pictorial version, running gparted is a good idea.
Results are above from GParted.

---------- Post added 04-14-15 at 12:59 PM ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick View Post
Please post the output of:
Code:
# parted -l
Like above, I'll run that and get back to you. Thanks!
 
Old 04-14-2015, 12:16 PM   #7
JeremyBoden
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That gparted screen shot indicates that you have allocated 753GB to sda1 - even though you are only using 12GB

Similarly (to a smaller extent) for sda3.

gparted can resize and move partitions - although it can take hours in unfortunate cases!
I would try to avoid that - but it is an option.

Last edited by JeremyBoden; 04-14-2015 at 12:19 PM.
 
Old 04-14-2015, 12:20 PM   #8
Joshmccullough
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyBoden View Post
That gparted screen shot indicates that you have allocated 753GB to sda1 - even though you are only using 12GB

Similarly (to a smaller extent) for sda3.

gparted can resize and move partitions - although it can take hours in unfortunate cases!

That was my first thought: let's switch stuff around. But I didn't seem to be able to do it through GParted, but maybe I have to dig a little deeper. I certainly couldn't expand the boot partition, I could only shrink it (and I don't want to do that, of course.) Goofing around with GParted resulted in the /dev/sda2 170-something GB partition, which I'm sure I'll have to fix at some point
 
Old 04-14-2015, 12:36 PM   #9
yancek
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Check the owner:group for the different partitions in /media/joshandkaren. You likely need to give your user(s) or group ownership of the directories on the partition or the entire thing or change permissions.

Last edited by yancek; 04-14-2015 at 12:37 PM.
 
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Old 04-14-2015, 12:40 PM   #10
JeremyBoden
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Assuming you haven't done anything serious yet,

Backup sda1 & sda3 to USB.

Using the live DVD run gparted, delete all the partitions.
Then create a partition for /, format it to ext4,
Create a partition for /home, format it to ext4,
Create a swap partition.
Install Linux, making sure that the installer uses the partitions you have created for it

Assuming you actually need separate partitions for those /media/joshandkaren/... partitions

You could start by creating an extended partition for the remainder of the disk - but I don't think you need it.
In actual fact, I suspect they ought to be sub-directories of /home???
If so, don't create them because Linux will do that for you.
 
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Old 04-14-2015, 12:43 PM   #11
JeremyBoden
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek View Post
Check the owner:group for the different partitions in /media/joshandkaren. You likely need to give your user(s) or group ownership of the directories on the partition or the entire thing or change permissions.
You need to unmount a partition/filesystem before gparted can resize it.
 
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Old 04-14-2015, 01:05 PM   #12
Joshmccullough
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyBoden View Post
Assuming you haven't done anything serious yet,

Backup sda1 & sda3 to USB.

Using the live DVD run gparted, delete all the partitions.
Then create a partition for /, format it to ext4,
Create a partition for /home, format it to ext4,
Create a swap partition.
Install Linux, making sure that the installer uses the partitions you have created for it

Assuming you actually need separate partitions for those /media/joshandkaren/... partitions

You could start by creating an extended partition for the remainder of the disk - but I don't think you need it.
In actual fact, I suspect they ought to be sub-directories of /home???
If so, don't create them because Linux will do that for you.
I'll have to give this a shot, but it makes sense in my head. Push comes to shove, I can always backup whatever programs I've got installed somehow and try a clean wipe and reinstall.

True, I don't actually need the subpartitions/ /media partitions specifically, I just need storage space I can access easily.

---------- Post added 04-14-15 at 02:06 PM ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek View Post
Check the owner:group for the different partitions in /media/joshandkaren. You likely need to give your user(s) or group ownership of the directories on the partition or the entire thing or change permissions.
Hadn't thought about that, I'll have to look at that when I get a moment and see if maybe that's one of the issues preventing me from accessing it. If that's the case, then goofing with partitions isn't an issue, I can just save stuff wherever I want to save it and I'm good to go. Thanks for the input!
 
Old 04-14-2015, 03:52 PM   #13
joe_2000
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Something still seems wrong to me.

This here
Code:
/media/joshandkaren/8495904f-0de8-4cf9-b169-2c86a79ade35
looks to me like a mountpoint that was auto-generated by the system because you double-clicked on a desktop symbol or on a place in the filebrowser.
If that is the case, I would assume that the system takes care of setting the permissions right...
(I am assuming joshandkaren is the username under which you are running?)

Also, you posted
Code:
(drwx...+)
which would mean read-write-execute allowed for your user?!? I am not convinced this is a permission thing.
Another thing that does not make sense to me is that you are actually able to create a file, and then it's gone after reboot. If you had a permission problem, you'd not be able to create anything.

Did you deliberately create two separate data partitions? (I assume not). I am a big avocate of not mounting the data partition under /home but rather using a setup more similar to yours (dedicated data partition). I would probably look to combine the two partitions though.

If you were able to copy the data from sda3 to sda1 you could delete sda3 in gparted and resize sda1 to also occupy the space freed by deleting sda3. That resizing would be fast because you are not moving anything. It's the moving that takes hours. All of that could be done from the running system, you'd just need to unmount sda1 and sda3 before changing anything on them in gparted.

That way you could save yourself the trouble of a reinstall. You would, however, obviously first of all need to find out why you cannot write to the partitions, which was your actual question to begin with.

Can you provide detailed step-by-step information of what you are doing after booting to get these partitions mounted. Also, could you then just navigate to one of the partitions in the console as your regular user, and post the output of
Code:
ls -hal
and
Code:
touch testfile
In case you are not doing anything to mount the partitions manually, please post the output of
Code:
cat /etc/fstab
(This is the file that configures what gets mounted at boot.)
 
Old 04-14-2015, 06:59 PM   #14
yancek
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Quote:
I can't expand my Mint partition
You can't do it from GParted on the Mint partition but you can use GParted on the Mint install media to do it. Before you can increase the size, you would first have to create unallocated space. Your / partition (sda6) is on an Extended partition and you have a 7.89GB partition (sda5) which you could probably use. There really isn't any reason to do that as 47GB should be more than enough for a root filesystem. It shows the sda5 filesystem as "unknown", not sure what that's about.

I booted Mint 17 which I have installed and the owner:group and permissions are as below for what would be your system user:

Quote:
drwxr-x---+ 10 root root 4096 Apr 14 16:31 /media/joshandkaren
I expect yours would be the same. The sub-directories shown by UUID in your post could be different. On my Mint, some are root:root while others are user:user. The ones which are root:root I cannot write to as a user.

Given your initial report that you can create and save(?) a file as a user but that it is gone on boot would indicate that it is more than an owner:group permissions problem. This behavior is exactly what one would expect, IF using a Live CD or a Live install to a flash drive but definitely not an installed system. Might be better off reinstalling and creating different partitions. Put the / partition nearer the beginning of the drive rather than at the 860+GB mark of the drive. Don't really have an explanation for the behavior?

Last edited by yancek; 04-14-2015 at 10:24 PM.
 
Old 04-14-2015, 08:46 PM   #15
syg00
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I would blame the installer - Ubuntu had some pretty awful problems in 14.04, maybe they made their way to Mint
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ubuntu_14.04_release_notes
Automatic install is broken on drives that contain partitions that either do not have an operating system installed (eg. a user data partition like /home on Linux or D: on Windows), or partitions that have Windows 8 installed. Selecting automatic install (or upgrade) on these systems will result in the whole drive being wiped and all existing data will be lost. There are also problems dealing with systems with multiple drives. This bug is present in released media of 14.04 and 14.04.1. If you have a drive with any pre-existing partitions, or multiple drives, then you should use manual partitioning. Ensure you have backups.
I don't have Win8 anywhere, and I always manually partition, so haven't seen these issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshmccullough View Post
When I do an ls -al command on either /media folder on either partition, there's also a + sign at the very end of the listing (drwx...+) and I don't know what that means or signifies.
That means you have ACLs (Access Control Lists) in force on those. As the name implies, these (usually) further restrict access in addition to the normal *nix permission bits.

Seems to be a pretty ugly setup all round - probably needs "hands on" to diagnose properly. If t'was me, I'd manually delete all the partitions, then re-install onto the empty disk. Less chance of the installer (Mint, not you ... ) screwing things up (again).
 
  


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