Re: Linux leaking space on FAT partitions!

Kevin Buhr (buhr@stat.wisc.edu)
03 Dec 1999 14:29:43 -0600


Callum Lerwick <lerwick@tcfreenet.org> writes:
>
> It got to the point where windows was saying there was 1.4gb free on my
> FAT32 D: partition, and Linux was insisting there was 270mb. I did a cat
> /dev/zero >/Ddos/foo which filled the 270mb space Linux thought there
> was, went to windows, It said there was 1.2 gb free, I ran Norton
> Scandisk, no complaints, I duplicated the foo file until there was 210mb
> left, went back to Linux, now it says there's 210mb free, deleted the
> foo files, 1.4gb free.

This is just a guess, since I don't have a Windows machine to test it
on, but perhaps you're just seeing the effects of Windows automanaging
its own swap file. Check the Windows Control Panel settings: if
you've told Windows to automatically manage swap, change the settings
to hold swap space at a reasonable maximum size, and see if that fixes
the problem.

If that fails, try running "du" on your FAT partitions, and save the
output somewhere. When you discover you've lost a few hundred megs,
run "du" on the same partitions again, and see where they differ, if
anywhere.

Kevin <buhr@stat.wisc.edu>

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