Arch Linux

jerik

Member

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 197

[SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

I just copied my home folder over to a bigger partition for lack of space, and edited my fstab file accordingly.

Then I logged out, renamed the old user folder from /home/myuser to /home/__myuser just to be sure I was not operating from the old directory anymore.

I rebooted, and all seem to have went well - except now I have no idea where that __myuser folder has ended up residing? it is not in the /home directory anymore, but I can tell it still exist by looking at the disc usage on my root partition.

Where to look?

Last edited by jerik (2015-05-15 21:43:13)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,977

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

When you mount a partition to "/home" is "goes over top of" what is already there.  Most likely your old user is underneath that old mount and can't be seen because the new mount is sitting on top of it.  You could boot off the Arch ISO, make sure your new /home isn't mounted, and move your old user out of /home and then mount your new /home and copy the user onto that partition.

jerik

Member

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 197

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

Aha! Thank you! I have already copied it over to the new partition, so I will just do a umount, delete the old, and then remount it

Wish me success

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,977

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

Good luck, being under the new mount is likely what it is.

jerik

Member

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 197

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

I faced an obstacle. Even though I have logged out, it says that my home partition i busy... what could be the cause of that?

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,977

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

You need to boot off the Arch ISO, make sure your new partition isn't mounted, then with the old partition mounted remove the files.  Make sure you have backups - or moved to the new user - of everything that you are going to remove.  Booting off the Arch ISO means that the /home mount point won't be in use by the system.

jerik

Member

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 197

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

Thank you sir! I came up with a bit faster solution I just removed the line from fstab, rebooted, deleted the old dir and then remounted my new partition. Now all is well!

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,977

Re: [SOLVED] Where did my old home directory go?

Right on, you're welcome.