Topic: failure delete folder/files on full USB-disk

[Roberto]

sme 8.0, USB-Disk where I make my backups with dar.

this disk is full now - when I try to delete files or folders with "rm -r [foldername]" I get the following Error:
"Kann Verzeichnis "xxx" nicht löschen. Auf dem Gerät idt kein Speicherplatz mehr verfügbar."
"Can't delete folder "xxx". No Space left on device."

How can I delete some old backup-sets without re-formating the whole disk?

[mmccarn]

Delete a few individual files first, to create some free space?

[Roberto]

there IS space left on the USB-Disc,
but I can't delete the old .dar-files anyway,
and I don't know why the system says that there is NO space left.

[janet]

Roberto

Please mount the USB drive then do
df -h
and show us the output

with the drive still mounted then do
ls -al /media/USBDisk
(replace /media/USBDisk with the mount point and name you use)
and show us the output

[chris burnat]

moving to General Discussions

[purvis]

I had some issues of deleting files where some files where hidden and write protected,
Those files i had issues with where transferred from windows machines to the server.
I could not reset the file permissions inside the ibay from a windows xp or windows 200o pro machines using a shared folder on the smeserver.
The files where transferred onto the server a long time ago.
I believe what might of happened could of been some kind of samba problem in from an older version of samba, that is just a guess.
The files that i had issues with, where on no importance to me, "desktop.ini" and such.
I had to ssh into the server and delete either the directory or the file.
To delete the directory in which the file was in, i used "rm -rf directory" on the server.
The "f" stands for "force".

[Roberto]

 
I got it - I found a solution:
I started a new Backup.
While this backup was running, I had acces to the USB-Disk where I deleted the old backups.
(You must delete faster than the new files are beeing written.)
(On trying to delete these old sets without running a new backup, I got the messages mentioned obove.)
But thanks for your hints.

[janet]

Roberto

I think your issue is you do not know how to mount the USB drive, therefore you would never be able to delete files from it.
During a backup the drive gets automatically mounted, that's why you can access it then.

Please read this Howto for mounting and unmounting details.
http://wiki.contribs.org/USBDisks

[Roberto]

maybe I'm not a mounting-expert,
but how could it happen, that I could write files/folders on that disk, but could not delete the old sets?

[janet]

Roberto

As I said
"During a backup the drive gets automatically mounted, that's why you can access it then."

Maybe your drive is automounted at start up, but then gets unmounted. That could explain your erratic access behaviour
You really have to tell us more about how you connect to the drive, what mount commands you issue etc.

Please read that wiki article