• Unia
  • #! Die-hard
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  • From: The Netherlands
  • Registered: 2010-07-17
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Topic: [Solved] Messed up my system

So I was trying to backup my whole system to my external HD. Upon selecting the directory where the backup would be placed, I noticed there were some files on the HD I don' t need anymore. Thus, I moved them to trash. But, since these files were large (75 / 80 Gb total), my / partition got full.

That' s easily solved; just empty the trash. I did that two times (so removed 60GB's of my HD).
When my / got full for the 3rd time, I tried to open Thunar as root to empty the trash again. This time, I got a message saying something about my .Xauthority file. (don' t know the exact error message).

Now, instead of searching for this issue I thought I could reboot - and here is where I was dead wrong. Upon booting, Xorg gave me a message saying it can't wright to /tmp, which is obvious, because my whole / partition is full. Secondly, I can' t login: another error with .Xauthority I guess.

So there's two problems:
1. Solved! How can I "retrieve" or fix my .Xauthority;
2. Solved! How can I clean my / partition?

Please note that at the moment I can' t boot into the system. Currently I'm typing this from my Statler LiveCD.

Please, please help me guys. I was almost done setting up my minimal Ubuntu install (only had to back everything up sad ) and I don't want to start all over again!

Last edited by Unia (2010-09-03 13:24:29)

Let's do it and don't screw it.
  • Unia
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Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

Ok, I solved problem 2. I booted on my Statler LiveCD and did the following:

I mounted my / partition, by

sudo mkdir /media/ubuntu
sudo mount /dev/sda7 /media/ubuntu

Then I opened Thunar as root, with "sudo Thunar" and I searched for the trash folder for the root account. When I found it, I didn't delete it, because this would create just a new trash folder on the / partition. So instead of deleting the files, I copied them back to my external HD. My / partition is now clean again.

Now on to problem 1.

Last edited by Unia (2010-09-02 21:42:19)

Let's do it and don't screw it.
  • From: Nagoya, Japan
  • Registered: 2009-01-07
  • Posts: 1,724

Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

Can you log in to a command line? When you boot up, try pressing Alt+F1 (or Ctrl+Alt+F1) and log in at that virtual terminal. If you then run startx what error messages do you get?

John
------------------------
( a boring Japan blog , and idle twitterings )
“There is more Unix-nature in one line of shell script than there is in ten thousand lines of C.” - Master Foo

johnraff's Website

  • Unia
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Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

No I can't. It doesn't accept any passwords at all.

Also, I cleaned my / partition, so X should work again. I think the problem with the passwords has something to do with .Xauthority.

Let's do it and don't screw it.
  • Unia
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Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

I booted to my system to check whether the problem with /tmp being full really was solved, and to my surprise I can login again - even the root fuction works big_smile
Configure this problem solved!

Let's do it and don't screw it.
  • From: Nagoya, Japan
  • Registered: 2009-01-07
  • Posts: 1,724

Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

cool

(maybe add [SOLVED] to the first post's title)

John
------------------------
( a boring Japan blog , and idle twitterings )
“There is more Unix-nature in one line of shell script than there is in ten thousand lines of C.” - Master Foo

johnraff's Website

  • Unia
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  • Registered: 2010-07-17
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Re: [Solved] Messed up my system

johnraff wrote:

cool

(maybe add [SOLVED] to the first post's title)

Forgot that, thanks for noticing

Let's do it and don't screw it.