Invisible Directory
 

Installed upgrade from 10.1 CE to 10.1 Official via urpmi, all went smoothly. On reboot i lost my user home directory, which I was expecting as I have read a post with similar outcome. Removed original user and recreated account. Computer now works fine, but I have lost all my original settings, which I re-entered. Question is, I had Photos and MP3s in home directory of original user which are'nt there anymore, no problem as I can reload from CD backup. But here's the funny thing, if I run "locate *.mp3" or "locate *.jpg in a terminal, it comes back with a list of MP3 or JPG directories in my Home directory which simply are'nt there, where is it getting it's information from. Also running kdiskfree seems to show they are still there but can't see them in Konqueror? Do I need to remount these directories, or somehow incorporate them into the directory structure, but they are there according to "locate".

Locate retrieves its information from a database which is daily rebuild by cron.
You could try running "updatedb" as root to update it.

Directories whose name start with a period tend to be invisible. Maybe that's what is happening in your case.

Groetjes,

Kees-Jan

"locate" bases its searches upon a snapshot of the filesystem, that should be regularly refreshed. That's why it is fast. If you want a "real result", use "find".

Yves.

First update locate's data base by opening a console and typing

updatedb &

You will get the prompt back immediately. Do not close the console.

Wait for it to finish. It may take 5-8 minutes or more.

Now run locate again against your missing files.

If it finds them, they are indeed there... but maybe not where you expect.

Thanks, I will try this when I get Home from work.

If your original home directory truly is hidden, you should be able to see it in Konqueror by opening the View menu, then selecting the 'Show Hidden Files' option.

If after updating the database as suggested earlier the files are still found, then you may be able to learn where the directory is mounted by looking at /etc/fstab.

If your /home directory was located in its own volume before you upgraded, is it possible it was mounted under the /mnt directory? (just thinking 'off the cuff' ... :) ).

Yes they have definately gone, so restered from CD, thanks to all concerned.