For questions regarding disk storage devices such as hard disk drives, floppy disk drives, and optical disk drives.
19
votes
4answers
2k views
Importance of Swap Partition
What is the purpose of a swap partition?
How do I know I have just enough swap partition? Not too much/little.
My Ubuntu PC is used for typical stuff:
Web (email, facebook, etc.)
Some movies
...
18
votes
8answers
44k views
How to make a disk image and restore from it later?
I'm a new Linux user. I've reinstalled my Wubi from scratch at least ten times the last few weeks because while getting the system up and running (drivers, resolution, etc.) I've broken something (X, ...
15
votes
3answers
6k views
How to set up multiple hard drives as one volume?
I am about to set up box to basically be a file server. I plan on having multiple drives in the box, and would like to set them all up so that they appear to be a single drive. So I could essentially ...
15
votes
3answers
4k views
Disk Utility: What's the difference between “Unmount” and “Safe Removal”?
System > Administration > Disk Utility
What's the difference between "Unmount Volume" and "Safe Removal"? Say you insert a flash drive and open the Disk Utility UI, if you click on "Safe Removal" you ...
14
votes
4answers
942 views
How to replace my disk without having to rebuild my Ubuntu install?
I'd like to buy a new 1TB disk to replace my old 150GB disk.
Is there an easy way to copy my Ubuntu installation, with my home folder content, system settings, applications, and so on, so at the end ...
10
votes
7answers
7k views
How can I physically identify a single drive in a RAID array?
I have an external drive bay with 4 eSATA disks in it. My system has a 4-port eSATA card, as well as a pair of internal hardware RAID1 drives. The external drives are in software RAID1 pairs as ...
9
votes
1answer
2k views
How do I improve my server disk performance
I have an HP Microserver running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It's a low power server with 5 internal drive bays. I use it to backup my remote servers, VPSs and local laptops over the network. I want to get the ...
8
votes
7answers
8k views
How to find out how much disk space is remaining?
What is the command to find out how much disk space is being used/remaining?
8
votes
1answer
6k views
Repair whole NTFS filesystem
I'm searching for useful tools for repairing a whole NTFS partition / drive, not only specific files.
My usecase: I'm trying to clone a netbook drive via partimage. Unfortunately the NTFS partition ...
7
votes
5answers
17k views
How do I open the Disk Utility in the Unity Desktop environment?
I am new to Ubuntu and have installed it side by side with windows 7. Both boot up okay, my problem is I can't get to disk utility to create a partition that I can share between both OSs. Help says go ...
7
votes
2answers
38k views
How to run a checkdisk?
I suspect there might be bad sector on a disk. What tool is the best equivalent of the error checking tool of windows?
(I used ext3)
7
votes
9answers
11k views
Disk by UUID not detected (initramfs), boot failure
I am unable to boot my lucid, with the built in boot shell giving out this error:
Update 1
This error occured after I updated my 2.6.32-26 version kernel and booted directly in winodows.
The ...
7
votes
6answers
1k views
How to determine where biggest files/directories on my system are stored?
I was wondering how do you know where the largest files in my system are stored.
For example---
Disk Space Used: 1GB
Java: 500MB
Java Percentage: 50% maybe represented in a pie chart. Maybe?
I know ...
7
votes
4answers
2k views
Low disk space: home/user folder occupies 94GB
I am low on disk space and when I check the Disk Usage analyzer (using gksudo baobab) it indicates that my home/teddy folder is using 94GB, but when I browse through its contents I can only account ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
Thunderbird 16.0.1 filling disk space
I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 with Thunderbird 16.0.1 and Kernel 3.6.0-030600rc4-generic. I used Thunderbird for quite a while and never had any problems with it. But now it seems to fill up my disk space very ...
7
votes
2answers
5k views
how to interpret these errors from syslog
My Ubuntu has been acting weird lately. Yesterday, it wouldn't boot normally, so I had to do a 'recovery mode' boot. It said I had to do an fsck manually, which I did using a live CD. After this, I ...
7
votes
2answers
108 views
How can set disk IO priority automatically?
If I use some IO intensive application (like Virtualbox, Steam data verification or even dd) my system becomes almost unresponsive. Despite all being started with normal priority, they make the ...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
What are the F6 options during installation?
What is the meaning of different options in the F6 context menu of Ubuntu installation dvd ?
i.e.
acpi=off
noapic
nolapic
edd=on
nodmraid
nomodeset
Free Software only
How do they affect the ...
6
votes
6answers
8k views
Errors in dmesg - Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled [duplicate]
I'm experiencing some problems with drive cache and I don't know what's causing these problems.
This is my dmesg:
[11690.011238] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
[11690.011248] sd ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
What are benefits of upgrading filesystem from ext2?
I have ext2 filesystem installed on my work machine. I talk with my friend who knows linux a lot better and he said its very old and its very weird that I use so old filesystem.
I'm now trying to get ...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
Source code for 'df' command
Can someone tell me how to locate the source code for the 'df' command. My operating system is Ocelot.
Thanks!
6
votes
4answers
1k views
How do I create a restore disk?
I'm new to ubuntu and reinstalled 11.04 atleast 10 times already. Each time I reconfigure all my settings and end up breaking something. It is really annoying and would be much easier if I can save ...
6
votes
1answer
511 views
Intense hard drive access activity immediately after log in
I upgraded my ubuntu karmic to lucid a few months ago. I don't know when it all started but the thing is that when I log in, I see a very intense disk access activity for a while that prevents any ...
6
votes
2answers
7k views
could not mount /dev/mapper/cryptswap1
I have just had a major issue with my Ubuntu 11.04 Natty which I think is going to end up in a reinstall :-(
This is problem one of two so I've put them as two questions.
For some unknown reason I ...
6
votes
1answer
185 views
Does installing to an extended partition reduce disk performance?
I was reading the latest issue of Full Circle (issue 63) and there was an article comparing boot times under various configurations. One of the comparisons was with an installation in a primary ...
6
votes
1answer
491 views
Smart Data Self-Test Failed
When I run the Smart Data Self-Test disk utility the result indicates Smart Self Test Failed. Yet when I look at the individual test, they all say OK. Did the test itself fail or did the disk fail ...
5
votes
3answers
2k views
How do I rename a USB drive?
How exactly would I rename a USB drive?
I've read that you can go into the Disk Utility, the click on Edit Partition and there is an option to rename the label but I can't click in the area to ...
5
votes
1answer
3k views
Mount disk (device) image
I made an image of my entire disk with
dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/external_media/sda.img
Now the problem is I'd like to mount an ext4 filesystem that was on that disk but
mount -t ext4 -o loop ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Out Of disk, but still boots
I have a HP Compaq nx6310 notebook wth 4gb memory & a new 250gb hdd. After installing Ubuntu 12.04, i got an "out of disk" error & was unable to boot. I rebooted in live, instaled & ran ...
5
votes
4answers
13k views
Increase partition size on which Ubuntu is installed?
I have Ubuntu installed on a drive. The problem is it is running low on disk space. This is installed on vmware. I expanded the virtual drive and booted into ubuntu. But when I opened gparted(sudo ...
5
votes
2answers
7k views
How do I give Ubuntu more space (when installed inside Windows 7 (via wubi))?
I had installed Ubuntu inside Windows XP but then I formatted XP and installed Windows 7.
EDIT1: I used Wubi for the same.
I want to know which one of the two will solve my problem? creating a ...
5
votes
1answer
2k views
/var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs eats up 68% of my disk space
On a device with 2GB storage every MB is counted.
I wonder what is this /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs doing on my system and is there a way to avoid its existence.
Note this mount point eats up 1.2 ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
Ubuntu Install Failing- Hard Drive
Trying to dual-boot UBuntu and Windows 7 on the same 1TB Sata hard drive, but the Ubuntu installer won't recognize the drive- the live CD will, though, and can see it under GParted, etc.
Already ...
5
votes
3answers
11k views
How to open wubi's .disk files under windows?
Wubi has created one big file with whole ubuntu installation root.disk - there are some files I have left on my linux partition that I would like to access from windows partition,
Is there any way to ...
5
votes
1answer
285 views
Is there a way to force a specific file to exist in RAM only?
I like this suggestion of mounting a tmpfs at /var/log in order to reduce disk writes.
Is there any way to do something similar for just a single file such as ~/.xsession-errors?
My incentive for ...
5
votes
2answers
601 views
How to wipe RAM on shutdown (prevent Cold Boot Attacks)?
My system is encrypted using Full Disk Encryption, i.e. everything except /boot is encrypted using dmcrypt/luks. I am concerned about Cold Boot Attacks.
Prior work:
...
5
votes
6answers
3k views
Checksums do not match when creating a bootable USB stick
Since karmic koala, I can't create a bootable USB. Always the same error, it arrives to 96% and then this error " checksums do not match". Also in lucid, meerkat and natty even with fresh install. ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
Is it possible to extend the disk space available to a wubi install? [duplicate]
I installed ubuntu 10.04 using wubi. I now wish to allocate more disk space to my ubuntu install. Is this possible?
4
votes
2answers
6k views
Increase size of root partition after installing Ubuntu in Windows
Every time update manager prompts an update I get a message saying that there is not enough space available, however the partition with Ubuntu installed has over 10 GB of free space available.
I'm ...
4
votes
3answers
188 views
Does Ubuntu come with disk partitioning in the installer?
When I install ubuntu I want to know whether it will give me the option to partition my disk. I am installing ubuntu for my laptop and I need some of my windows stuff as well. I would be thankful to ...
4
votes
2answers
3k views
Disk Utility pop up so many times and too many at a time (above 10 pop ups)
The Disk Utility pop-up the same message so many times and too many at a time. The message is the same "Hard Disk Problem Detected. A hard disk is reporting health problems." The hard disk has ...
4
votes
2answers
610 views
What is the difference between the “Entire Partition” and “Entire Disc”?
I want to install Ubuntu alongside my Windows 7 operation system.
During installation I have three options:
Install alongside the existing OS.
Remove everything and install Ubuntu.
Manual ...
4
votes
1answer
211 views
Why is `df -h` not showing the whole disk space?
I recently formatted my hdd to increase the partition size for Ubuntu. Despite the actual 170 GB free space (sda5), Ubuntu shows only 27 GB when prompted via properties. Here is my df-h output:
...
4
votes
1answer
735 views
“df -h” command puts line breaks in output. How do I fix?
My "df -h" command on my Linux box has some devices with longer names and so the "df -h" output has line breaks (or tabs??) in it, which makes it difficult to parse the output in a script.
Does ...
4
votes
1answer
207 views
Why is there not much space for my Ubuntu?
I have a dual system: Windows 7 + Ubuntu. The Windows came with my laptop and I installed Ubuntu without Wubi...
My total filesystem capacity: 303.2 GB, I just do not understand why there is not much ...
4
votes
5answers
3k views
4
votes
6answers
852 views
Hard drive overheating badly
My laptop's hard drive heats up quite badly. The regular operating range hovers around 42-44 Centigrade. It gets even worse when the screen is locked with temperatures shooting up to 50C. The casing ...
4
votes
1answer
105 views
Safely removing eSATA disks
Is there any way to safely remove any external disk connected via eSATA?
Disks make an ugly noise when unplugged, even if there are no mounted partitions...
I found somewhere this little command:
...
4
votes
1answer
582 views
How to handle out of space errors
I'm using Ubuntu installed inside windows with Wubi.
During upgrade to 12.04 I came across a rather devious trap. About 25% through the installation of packages, I get the message that packages can't ...
4
votes
1answer
104 views
Cannot boot ubuntu after remove failed data disk (system on different disk)
Our Ubuntu server has four hard disks, but we didn't make them a RAID. Yesterday, one of the disk was reported to be failing, and this disk was /dev/sdb and was mounted as /data (was used to store ...
