# [SOLVED] Harddisk 100% full - .xsession-error = over 200GB

## MikeG1

Hi guys, 

When booting i get the error "no space left on disk". 

I can't even boot into my KDE anymore. 

Booting always stops in CONSOLE mode. 

The problem is, I have no idea why the disk is full..

Before the problem occured I had about 100gb of free disk space. 

I booted from a live CD a searched for any unusual  large files, but couldn't find anything.

Running fsck didn't fix anything neither. 

Any ideas what is wrong.. 

THX

Mike!Last edited by MikeG1 on Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## idella4

MikeG1,

I suppose it's worth asking what fs your system is, but no matter what the answer it won't really help,

If you want to at least get into your system, spark up your live cd, create a new partition and copy /transfer a root folder to it. /home would be the easiest and least drastic option.  Once copied over, delete the root folder, thus freeing up space.

Then again, it's a new system, /home probably  contains a few mb.  To really clear a space, shift /usr, but be sure to use cp -a or perhaps tar to a tarball, then explode the tarball onto the new partition.  You have to get meaningful symlinks when shifting a system folder.

Di it as a first step.  If you make a copy and can not delete the copied root folder, then you have a more serious problem; repost

You can rectify it by other means but let's cross that bridge later if required.

or just resize your system partition with another few gig.

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## iss

Maybe you run out of inodes? It's possible when you have lots of small files.

When you boot livecd try 'df -i'.

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## ToeiRei

another hint:

```
du -h --max-depth=1
```

You can use that for tracking down big directories. Mostly things like a MySQL Binlog are ignored - that way you are pointed to such things. (You can do this using a LiveCD)

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## phajdan.jr

You can use ncdu to quickly find what takes the most space.

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## chix4mat

Is the entire OS on the same partition? It might be worth a shot doing a 'du -sh' on some key folders, as it will help you see where all of the space is being hogged. I tend to 'du -sh /home/username' if I find space missing, because sometimes there are log files that get way out of hand due to some unforseen error (I once had a 20GB xorg error log!). The same could be said for 'du -sh /var/log'. 

This is the least-technical way to find hogged space, but it's also a good start.

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## MikeG1

Hi guys..

Finally found the file..

The .xession-errors had a size of over 200GB..

Really weird error. I have no idea what caused this.

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## chix4mat

 *MikeG1 wrote:*   

> Hi guys..
> 
> Finally found the file..
> 
> The .xession-errors had a size of over 200GB..
> ...

 

You certainly beat my 20GB...

Look inside of the file to see what's causing it  :Wink: 

If it's some nonsensical error you don't want to deal with, you could filter it through to /dev/null. That's what I had to do with my problem back in the day. Probably not the best solution, but it works.

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## doctork

On my main desktop system the file contains a lot of messages from kwin and kalarm that should only be of interest to the KDE devlopers/maintainers.  Why isn't there a USE flag to suppress them??

--

doc

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