Wait!!!

Make sure you run only a non-destructive fsck. If the non-destructive
fsck shows no problem, do the following...

First run the sync command. The sync command forces all caches to be
written to their respective files.

If they're on a removeable drive, my next step after sync would be to
unmount the drive. Then physically disconnect it. Then physically
reconnect it. Then remount it. Then do your df -h.

Also, if your removeable drive is some sort of SSD, you might need to
do fstrim, although I swear I remember space deleted but not yet
trimmed doesn't count in df. But I could be wrong.

SteveT


Ludovic Bellière said on Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:33:37 +0100

>Run fsck to make sure your disk isn't corrupted or damaged. Afterward,
>your lost+found might get populated with the stuff that occupies the
>space, done so in order for you to review.
>
>On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 20:10:03 -0700
>Marc Shapiro via Dng <dng@???> wrote:
>
>> I had some large files (over 200GB in total size) that I no longer
>> needed.  So I removed them.  They no longer show up in the
>> directory. However, df, still shows the space as being used.  I
>> understand that if processes are still using the files they will not
>> be removed until the processes either release them, or are shut down
>> (or killed).  I have tried using 'lsof -a -L1 MOUNTPOINT' to list the
>> open, but deleted files.  It returns no files at all.
>>
>> These files are on a removable drive.  I can unmount the partition
>> and disconnect the drive, then reconnect the drive and remount the
>> partition, but the space still shows as being used. If the files are
>> still open, shouldn't 'umount' give an error?
>>
>> I would rather not have to shut down the system.  Is there some
>> other way to determine what is keeping these files open, or
>> otherwise preventing the space from being reclaimed?
>>
>> Marc
>>
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