250gb Western Digital External HD Not Showing Full Space

[PaulTR]

Hi. I just got a Ubuntu CD from my programming teacher at the university this last week and have been toying around with it to learn it basically as a trial by fire thing. The biggest thing I've not been able to figure out, even after googling for a solution, is how to get my external harddrive to not say it's near full with only ~40 gigs of stuff on it.

Here's a bit of the output from commands I've tried:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
paul@paul-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for paul:

Disk /dev/sda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7d067d06

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4787 38451546 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 4788 4998 1694857+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4788 4998 1694826 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b6ac646

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4818 38700553+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 4819 30401 205495447+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 4819 30122 203254348+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 30123 30401 2241036 82 Linux swap / Solaris


------------------------------------------------------------------

paul@paul-desktop:~$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD2500BEVT-22ZCT0
Serial Number: WD-WXE908EX2983
Firmware Revision: 11.01A11
Transport: Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5
Standards:
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 488397168
device size with M = 1024*1024: 238475 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 250059 MBytes (250 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 0
Advanced power management level: 128
Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
SET_MAX security extension
* Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
* IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* SATA-II signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Long Sector Access (AC1)
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
82min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 82min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50014ee25771b4ea
NAA : 5
IEEE OUI : 14ee
Unique ID : 25771b4ea
Checksum: correct
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

paul@paul-desktop:~$ sudo mkdir /media/disk
mkdir: cannot create directory `/media/disk': File exists
paul@paul-desktop:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/disk
lspaul@paul-desktop:~$ ls /media/disk
autorun.in_2.org Over 1100 General Computer Ebooks
Books Physics 2B presentations
Default Programs Pictures
Desktop Backgrounds $RECYCLE.BIN
Firefly Season 1 Complete DvdRip Ac3 Recycled
Movies System Volume Information
Music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Any help would be really appreciated. I'm trying to keep all my pictures/music on this external harddrive because I know one of these days I'm going to end up screwing up my computer to the point where I have to reload Linux from scratch Thanks.

[PaulTR]

More detail:

I checked under system monitor and it's showing that it's vfat. I also have another disk thing that pops up when I plug in my external, and it has all the same files that the main HD has. It's called 208.1 GB media and when I open it up it's at /media/disk with a /root and /boot and all of those other fun files in it. It disappears when I unplug the HD, and it looks like it has the remainder of the space. It's in the system monitor bit as an ext3. No clue how if I'd be able to save anything to it and have it there when I plug my HD into a windows machine or not, though, or how any of this such works. Thanks.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

What is the output of df -h command?

df -h

[PaulTR]

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 37G 35G 0 100% /
varrun 375M 108K 375M 1% /var/run
varlock 375M 0 375M 0% /var/lock
udev 375M 40K 375M 1% /dev
devshm 375M 12K 375M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 375M 39M 336M 11% /lib/modules/2.6.24-23-generic/volatile
gvfs-fuse-daemon 37G 35G 0 100% /home/paul/.gvfs
paul@paul-desktop:~$

[devils casper]

Execute this

sudo mkdir /media/sdb1
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1  /media/sdb1  -o defaults,umask=0
ls /media/sdb1
df -h

[HROAdmin26]

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b6ac646

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4818 38700553+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 4819 30401 205495447+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 4819 30122 203254348+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 30123 30401 2241036 82 Linux swap / Solaris

It is listed very clearly that the drive is split into 3 mountable partitions:

/dev/sdb1 = Windows FAT partition apparently
/dev/sdb5 = Linux partition with most of the disk space
/dev/sdb6 = Linux partition (swap) - probably only 1-2GB

[jmadero]

Run disk usage analyzer to see what it shows. Applications->Accessories->Disk Usage Analyzer. You should look for the folder that your hard drive is being mounted to (probably /media/disk)