Drive space mystery?

Edward78

Edward78

Edward78

Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
5,780
Well I have a 400ish gig drive, with Win7 x64, Ubuntu 11.04 & a partition for downloads. First I noticed this in windows it said only 4 gig was left. I highlighted everything on the drive & looked at properties it said all that was 30 gig. It is a 115ish partition so, I just thought windows was making a mistake. Ok when I booted Ubuntu I checked. Plus, what is the unallocated 20 gig\? I didn't do a custom install of either OS, so they took up the space my XP & Mint were on & there was no 20 gig unallocated with them.

screenshot1ofq.png
 
Last edited:
Not sure why so much space is unallocated, but you can easily subsume it into Downloads using GParted or, preferably, the equivalent Windows tool. Ubuntu doesn't seem to be on the same disk, by the way...

As for only 4GB of space left, that does seem odd. Are you viewing hidden files?
 
Since it's an NTFS partition it's probably easiest to investigate from within a Windows environment. Try grabbing WinDirStat and using it to scan the Downloads partition. It'll show you graphically where all the data is.
 
My guess is that Ubunto 11.04 is actually installed on a differnt HDD? Correct ?

Windows reports 4 Gb remaining in your dowmloads partition... which is correct

The unallocated sector is left over or unsed on the drive after you originally partitioned it into 2. You could use GParted and simply expand the Download partition to use the unallocated portion :)
 
My guess is that Ubunto 11.04 is actually installed on a differnt HDD? Correct ?
Click to expand...

No, I just have 1 HDD installed. Maybe the unallocated is really where Ubuntu is, but for some odd reason it says unallocated??
 
Last edited:
Ubuntu is definitely not in the unallocated space. That space is not being used for anything at all.

This sounds crazy, but is it possible that Wubi has somehow installed Ubuntu within the Downloads partition?! And if so, why the hell would it do that?
 
Huw said:
Ubuntu is definitely not in the unallocated space. That space is not being used for anything at all.

This sounds crazy, but is it possible that Wubi has somehow installed Ubuntu within the Downloads partition?! And if so, why the hell would it do that?
Click to expand...

Well I guess, but why would it be so huge? I only have Firefox, Gparted & Vlc ontop of the default install. I have no idea why it would do that, I was sure I picked unallocated space for install. Plus fstab says root is ext4, but no ext4 partitions are listed??? Put this one in the computer twilight zone. I am going to see about it with that file linked in a post here. Have I found a strange 11.04 bug, hmmm. Just about the Wubi thing, can I see the install history somewhere?

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/host/ubuntu/disks/root.disk / ext4 loop,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/host/ubuntu/disks/swap.disk none swap loop,sw 0 0
 
Well, however it happened, if I were in your shoes what I'd do is backup all the stuff in Downloads, get rid of Ubuntu, shrink the Downloads partition a bit, and install Ubuntu properly using the (now larger) unallocated space.
 
Essexraptor said:
nah if he installed with wubi it will be inside his windows partition - just like a large file

similiar to if you set up a VM machine and allocate 20 or 30Gb for it etc

thats why it shows 2 x NTFS partitions and the unused bit at the end :)
Click to expand...

Really? Hmmm, well fstab says root is ext4?? It was a windows image I made taking up 64.7 gig!!! Man how could it have been that big? Why would it do that, I thought it installed on unallocated space? No wonder it boots kind of slow. I kind of want to move it to the blank space then, but no harm done so I guess it is ok.
 
Edward78 said:
Really? Hmmm, well fstab says root is ext4?? It was a windows image I made taking up 64.7 gig!!! Man how could it have been that big? Why would it do that, I thought it installed on unallocated space? No wonder it boots kind of slow. I kind of want to move it to the blank space then, but no harm done so I guess it is ok.
Click to expand...

Yeppers :) Remember that you have your Windows install (mine is currently just over 41Gb and that's stripped out - no docs, pics, music, steam, games, non essential additional apps - nowt) plus your wubi installed Ubuntu sitting in that partition. It (wubi) creates all the ext4 partitions inside the folder which is why you can't see them.

I would do as suggested by Huw. OR move all your downloads to a seperate drive and install ubuntu alongside windows instead of using wubi :) That way your ubuntu will boot and run much faster :)
 
Last edited:
Essexraptor said:
Yeppers :) Remember that you have your Windows install (mine is currently just over 41Gb and that's stripped out - no docs, pics, music, steam, games, non essential additional apps - nowt) plus your wubi installed Ubuntu sitting in that partition. It (wubi) creates all the ext4 partitions inside the folder which is why you can't see them.

I would do as suggested by Huw. OR move all your downloads to a seperate drive and install ubuntu alongside windows instead of using wubi :) That way your ubuntu will boot and run much faster :)
Click to expand...

Can I install it on a unallocated part of the drive with Wubi? (Not a virtual disk, like a normal linux install)












\


















0
 
Last edited:
Why are you so keen to use Wubi anyway? Installing from the live disc is easy peasy, or you could even use UNetBootIn to do the same from a thumb drive.
 
Essexraptor said:
long story short - no

sorry BUT


you can migrate or move your wubi install... but after reading through it... I think it would be easier, and less risky on your current data partition setup, to go for a data move and clean install

if your really keen, a deep in depth guide is here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1519354

good luck

:)
Click to expand...

That does look a bit over my head, can I export my passwords from Firefox 7.0.1 in this install so I can inport them in the new? Man, I wish they had YaST for .deb distributions, I miss YaST, but .rpm sucks. Can I backup my apts & reinstall them on the new install? I want to keep my settings.
 
Last edited:
Edward78 said:
Can I backup my apts & reinstall them on the new install? I want to keep my settings.
Click to expand...

Sure. If you want to backup your installed packages list, look here. As for saving your settings, you'll need to transfer all the hidden files in your /home. For example (and this will also sort your Firefox settings), in /home you will see a hidden folder called .mozilla (the preceding dot indicates it's a hidden file, or rather directory in this case). As long as .mozilla is copied to your new install all your Firefox settings will be exactly as they were.

And yeah, compared to deb packages, RPM really does suck. But after trying OpenSUSE and Fedora recently, I kinda got used to it. It's all about having the right repositories loaded. :)

Edit: Oh, you might also want to backup and restore /etc too, since a lot of system configuration goes on in there. But to avoid the possibility of conflicts, I never do this. Your mileage may vary.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom