Which Hard Drive is Storing my Files - SOLVED

[enjohn]

if you open terminal and the prompt is mint@mint then you're on the live session. Reboot / pull the USB when it tells you to, and boot off the main HDD.

(or when the LM USB menu comes up, select the "boot off primary disk" option).

Hello, again! I really appreciate your patience in helping me with this huge learning curve. After checking in terminal I am definitely not on the live session. I have gone into Disk which shows my ADATA SU630 SSD (500GB) has been partitioned 50% File System (Partition5 240 GB Ext4) and the other 50% Extended Partition (Partition 2 240GB). In the list of drives - 240 GB Disk ADATA SU630 - 1.0 TB Hard Disk ST1000DM010-2EP102 and also the CD/DVD Drive. I opened Disk Analyzer which shows the Home Folder - the system SSD showing 103.9 GB available (234 GB Total) - New Volume (my HDD) Unmounted.

Looking at this, I think this means that I only have access to 103.9 GB for storage etc. which may be the reason I was getting errors preventing me from updating to the newest version of Mint?

I hope this makes sense. I have been unable to work out how to send you this information without sending a .png file, so I hope you'll be able to understand what I have sent! Thanks again.

[enjohn]

You can also go to your LM meno, where the "start" menu for Windows would be in lower left corner, and type in "syst" (no quotes) then choose "System Monitor". This will show you which devices (drives) your / and /home partitions are on. A drive is designated as /dev/sda or /dev/sdX where X is a, b, c, etc A partition on a drive is /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 etc. Use the info in System Monitor in conjunction with the info from Disks, as @ChickyNugglez suggested, and you should have your system layout.

Thanks for your guidance. System Monitor shows two drives /dev/sda5 - the details are identical apart from one showing a /run/timeshift/t Directory. The third drive is /dev/sda1 (Directory /boot/efi Type vfat) I have taken your advice and have started to look into mounting partitions and fstab. Thanks again.

Here is a screenshot of my SystemMonitor taken a while ago. If you click on the screenshot, you will get a larger, easier to read view.

Notice the first two column headings: Device and Directory. For your question, these are the important ones. Using this as an example, the most important lines for any Linux system are in the first row and the fourth row. In this screenshot, the first row is highlighted. The device (i.e. partition on the /dev/sda drive) is /dev/sda1. It is mapped to the / directory. The fourth row is the partition /dev/sda3 which is mapped to the /home directory. All the devices starting with /dev/sdaX are on the same physical hard drive. You should have something similar I think.

SysMon-FileSys-02-23-22.png

Now when you open nemo, the file browser on Linux Mint Cinnamon, on the left hand side navigation pane, you should see directories labeled Home and File System. If you click on Home, and look in the text bar at the top of the window, it will give the full path to YOUR home directory which should be something like /home/enjohn or whatever your user name is. Similarly, if you click on the File System entry on the left, and then look in the text bar at the top of the window, it will show the path /. Linux operating system files are in / and your personal configuration files and data files are in /home/enjohn.

Please take a screenshot of your SystemMonitor with the FileSystems tab selected. The Screenshot tool is also in the Menu. Save it to your desktop for now. Then use the attachments tab to paste it here so we can see all the relevant info.

Don't give up!

Seriously, no chance of me giving up - as daunting as it all is at the moment! I opened nemo and the paths were as you said they should be. I will attach the system monitor screen as requested. I have also attached one of Disk Usage Analyzer. Something strange has happened! You will see in the Analyzer image the New Volume disk is unmounted. I opened Disk and clicked on New Volume but nothing appeared to change. I have just checked it again and new Volume is showing as Available with 24.8GB stored!

[djph]

Looking at this, I think this means that I only have access to 103.9 GB for storage etc. which may be the reason I was getting errors preventing me from updating to the newest version of Mint?

Mint needs far less than 100GiB of free space ...

I hope this makes sense. I have been unable to work out how to send you this information without sending a .png file, so I hope you'll be able to understand what I have sent! Thanks again.

Terminal tools are your friend.
(or pictures work too; like you give on the other posts)


Anyway, given the pics in your most recent post, "New Volume" is some random extra harddrive; and everything is stored on the 200 GiB drive (specifically the /dev/sda5 partition, mounted to "/")

[Daisuke]

Thanks for posting those screen shots. It appears that Linux is not installed properly, or at least not in the standard way. You should have a swap partition and also a /home partition, but you do not. It goes back to this:

I just followed the instructions on installing Linux Mint. During the install I was asked if I wanted to set up any partitions, but I didn't.

A normal Linux Mint installation creates 4 partitions mapped to key parts of the file system. The first is a boot partition, which may or may not be mounted depending on whether or not you have a dual boot system (I do), the second is root (/), the third is a swap partition which is not mounted, and the fourth is /home which holds user data.

One thing you should do is to mount the new volume and look at what is there. You can mount it in Disks and use nemo to look around. Also use nemo to see what is under /. You do not want to lose any data. If you find any precious data, you will need to back it up to another drive, perhaps an external hard disk.

Then you should consider whether or not to re-install. You need to watch a video or read some instructions on a proper Linux installation sequence so you know what to expect. Just search for "How to install Linux Mint" on youtube or in general.

However, someone with more experience could weigh in here and provide a way for you to save this installation if re-installation is not an option. I do know that re-partitioning involves some risk of data loss, so definitely back things up before you go there

[JerryF]

...
You should have a swap partition and also a /home partition, but you do not.
...

A swap partition is not needed nor is it created by a normal installation.

A swap file is created.

[djph]

Thanks for posting those screen shots. It appears that Linux is not installed properly, or at least not in the standard way. You should have a swap partition and also a /home partition, but you do not. It goes back to this:

Standard install ("use the entire disk") will be one partition (/). On a newer machine with UEFI-booting, /boot/efi will also be created. In the event the disk is sufficiently large, a third partition (/boot) will also be created, to ensure that the files necessary for booting are found within the first 2TB of the disk.

Dualboot with Windows will be pretty much the same, except that usually the windows EFI partition is used for the Linux EFI stuff (at least right now -- apparently there's a bug in the installers where the linux /boot/efi partition isn't used).

[enjohn]

...
You should have a swap partition and also a /home partition, but you do not.
...

A swap partition is not needed nor is it created by a normal installation.

A swap file is created.

Thanks for your reply. If you consider it best for me to start again and do it properly, I'm willing to do so. All part of the learning curve I guess!

[enjohn]

Hello - I am not giving up, I just want to do right! Thanks to everyone for all your and most of all patience! Based on what is being discussed I feel that it may well best to start again. There are no files that I need, that haven't already been backed up - several times. A bit of a blow. but I may as well do it right. I would appreciate your suggestions as to what tutorial will be best for me to follow? Also, will I need to format the disks before I start, or just install over the existing one? I used RUFUS to do this installation, is this the best one to use? I will wait until I have the information and then give it another go. Thanks to everyone for your help. Unfortunately, I will still need to worry some of you once I am back online!

[djph]

What do you believe is "wrong" with your install? Did you install to the wrong harddrive or something?

Or are you just listening to people who're assuming you did something wrong because your install looks ever so slightly different from theirs?

[enjohn]

During the installation I was asked if I wanted to partition any drives, as I wasn't sure I clicked "No" and proceeded. Everything seemed to be working okay, apart from my 1TB HDD was showing as "Unmounted". During the latter part of the install I tried do some required updates and received a 'lack of available storage' message. Therefore some updates were left undone. All seemed to be going okay until I received a prompt a couple of days ago to install the Linux Mint new version. All I kept getting were error messages and the update failed. What I couldn't find out was where my data was stored, hence the title of my post.

[Daisuke]

Clearly, @diph and @JerryF have more experience than I do. I have not had any issues with my installation so I offered this advice only as an example and suggested that others with more experience weigh in. They have and I will leave the rest to them since I do not want to give you any misinformation.

During my installation of 19.2, I followed the installation steps and did create partitions. The need for a swap partition (or file) depends on the amount of RAM in your system. If it is less than 1GB, a swap area is recommended as discussed here. It is easy to create a swap partition during installation if you do choose to have partitions. Perhaps @JerryF can advise you on creating a swap file. I will leave it to you to decide whether or not you need a separate partition for the /home directory. There are many articles discussing its advantages. Perhaps @diph can better advise you here since in his opinion, it is a very slight difference. I hope he can explain the errors you are having as well.

Good luck!

[enjohn]

Thanks very much for all you have done to help me so far. It's a pity I didn't pay more attention to all those YouTube videos I watched! Thanks for trying help me out.

[djph]

swapfile is the default approach in LM19 and 20 (defaulting to, IIRC, 2 GiB). Easier for one to edit the size (i.e. make bigger) if you find you don't have enough at the outset.

"advantages" of a separate partition for /home mainly come down to the fact that you can safely reinstall without necessarily needing to restore from backup right away. Bear in mind that this does not mean "you don't need a backup" (you do), but rather that if all goes well, your personal stuff is still available right away. As with anything, there are pros and cons, and it really comes down to personal preference. I used to do it all the time, but nowadays I just don't bother.

[Daisuke]

As with anything, there are pros and cons, and it really comes down to personal preference. I used to do it all the time, but nowadays I just don't bother.

Yes, pros and cons. I found this discussion to be very illuminating and it may help you make the right decision for you. There is always more to learn about Linux

[Cosmo.]

It is easy to create a swap partition during installation

It is by far easier to not create a swap partition. A swap file gets created without the smallest interaction. And you are more flexible with it. For increasing a partition you must at first take this place from another partition and that can be a laborious task. If you reduce the size of a partition you have at first no advantage from the free place.

This means, that for using a partition you must have very good arguments.

[enjohn]

Thanks again for all the information you are giving. I am not yet up to speed with all the technical details yet. I am prepared to start again if this will save problems later on, but obviously not ideal. If I stay with this installation, is there anything I can do after this installation to rectify any of the issues? If I carry on, what can I do to make the 1TB HDD the storage for my files, or is this not practical? How can I make this drive mount automatically on startup? I am prepared to try anything as I'm sure it will help my understanding a bit more. What I don't want to do is carry on working with this installation and what it may throw at me and then be more of a nuisance to the rest of you!

[mikeflan]

If I stay with this installation, is there anything I can do after this installation to rectify any of the issues?

Yes, almost anything can be done (or fixed) later. I encourage you to learn how to use Linux before you dive into another install that may cause more problems than it is worth.

One thing you might want to do is get Timeshift going, but make sure you have the disk space to store the snapshot. I see in your earlier post that you have 130 GB used and 92 GB unused. My guess is you have quite a bit of GB in your home directory and a snapshot (which does not include your home directory) can be saved on your OS disk. But you can also save the snapshot to an external disk if you would rather. Make sure you keep your OS partition (sda5) less than 85% full. Ideally much less.

Edit: Your first snapshot will probably be around 20 - 30 GB or so.

[Daisuke]

It is by far easier to not create a swap partition.

Please note that I said it was easy to create a swap partition during the installation. Clearly, it is NOT easy to do afterwards and that is why I recommended previously that he look at creating a swap FILE.

[enjohn]

If I stay with this installation, is there anything I can do after this installation to rectify any of the issues?

Yes, almost anything can be done (or fixed) later. I encourage you to learn how to use Linux before you dive into another install that may cause more problems than it is worth.

One thing you might want to do is get Timeshift going, but make sure you have the disk space to store the snapshot. I see in your earlier post that you have 130 GB used and 92 GB unused. My guess is you have quite a bit of GB in your home directory and a snapshot (which does not include your home directory) can be saved on your OS disk. But you can also save the snapshot to an external disk if you would rather. Make sure you keep your OS partition (sda5) less than 85% full. Ideally much less.

Edit: Your first snapshot will probably be around 20 - 30 GB or so.

Thank you for that information. I will follow your advice and learn more about Linux and continue on my current installation for now. Thanks again for your help.

[Cosmo.]

Please note that I said it was easy to create a swap partition during the installation.

I have indeed noted this. And even during installation you have to do a number of steps to create this partition, whereas you have to do nothing to get the file. All the other advantages of a swap file (in most circumstances) apply also.