Unable to see special file on external hard disk.

S

SSI89

Registered
Hello,

The problem I am experiencing is difficult to isolate, it could be related to hardware, software, or networking.

We are trying to back up a series of hard disks through an incremental backup software called Retrospect on an xserve. The external disk (Time Capsule) has been working fine and shows that 150 GB have been occupied leaving 350 GB for additional storage space. The issue is that I can't see the backup files. There should be two files, a backup set file and a backup set.cat (catalog). I do not know if these types are proprietary to Retrospect so I'm listing them here.

It's as if a ghost file in the external disk is taking up this 150 GB.

I've already talked to Emc2 (Retrospect) but have not made much progress, any thoughts?
 
You could try to log in as root user in the terminal and do an ls -al on the external drive.

(go to terminal, enter the su command and enter the administrator password.

Use /volumes/drivename to go to the drive and enter command ls -al


Good luck, Kees
 
No need to log in as root to do that... simply do a:
Code: 
cd /Volumes/[drivenamehere]
then:
Code: 
ls -la
...like Kees said.
 
I am unable to log in as root user from terminal. After entering the "su" command I am prompted for the password. There is no response from the keyboard input, it's like the keyboard just dies until I press "return":


administrators-mac-mini:~ Admin$ cd /Volumes/Apple Express 500 GB Backup
-bash: cd: /Volumes/Apple: No such file or directory
administrators-mac-mini:~ Admin$ su
Password:
su: Sorry

administrators-mac-mini:~ Admin$ ls
Desktop Movies Sites
Documents Music avidemux2_gtk.log
Downloads Pictures calls to make.txt
Library Public untitled folder
administrators-mac-mini:~ Admin$ ls -la
total 64
drwxr-xr-x+ 24 Admin staff 816 Nov 19 15:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin 170 Feb 26 2008 ..
-rw------- 1 Admin staff 3 Sep 5 11:03 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r--@ 1 Admin staff 15364 Nov 19 12:38 .DS_Store
drwx------ 4 Admin staff 136 Nov 19 14:33 .Trash
drwxr-xr-x 4 Admin staff 136 Aug 14 12:55 .avidemux
drwxr-xr-x 6 Admin staff 204 Aug 14 12:51 .avidemux-etc
-rw------- 1 Admin staff 156 Nov 13 13:37 .bash_history
drwx------ 3 Admin staff 102 Aug 14 12:52 .config
drwx------ 3 Admin staff 102 Apr 7 2008 .cups
drwx------ 2 Admin staff 68 Nov 19 15:31 .macports
drwxrwxr-x 3 Admin staff 102 Aug 14 12:23 .zs4
drwxrwxr--+ 63 Admin staff 2142 Nov 20 09:20 Desktop
drwx------+ 24 Admin staff 816 Oct 31 16:21 Documents
drwx------+ 77 Admin staff 2618 Nov 20 09:14 Downloads
drwx------+ 42 Admin staff 1428 Nov 18 11:36 Library
drwx------+ 6 Admin staff 204 Sep 30 09:33 Movies
drwx------+ 5 Admin staff 170 Sep 9 12:56 Music
drwx------+ 6 Admin staff 204 Oct 15 14:11 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x+ 6 Admin staff 204 Jul 30 11:25 Public
drwxr-xr-x+ 5 Admin staff 170 Feb 26 2008 Sites
-rw-r--r-- 1 Admin staff 2960 Aug 14 12:55 avidemux2_gtk.log
-rw-r--r--@ 1 Admin staff 494 Nov 5 13:23 calls to make.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 Admin staff 68 Sep 23 15:39 untitled folder

How can I use this information?
 
Code: 
cd /Volumes/Apple Express 500 GB Backup
Click to expand...

You can't do this. You need to escape the spaces, like so:

Code: 
cd /Volumes/Apple\ Express\ 500\ GB\ Backup/
You can do this quickly by typing "cd /Volumes/Apple" then pressing the tab key for bash auto-completion, which will then fill in the rest for you -- escaped spaces and all.

Also, no need to do the "su" bit if you're already logged in as an administrator.

If you do need root access, forget about "su" and just prefix your commands with "sudo", like so (it's a MUCH safer way to do root-level things):
Code: 
sudo cd /Volumes/Apple\ Express\ 500\ GB\ Backup/
Then type your admin password when prompted... but I highly doubt you need "sudo" to do any of this.
 
Hmm, evidently i'm using the wrong Volume name:

administrators-mac-mini:Volumes Admin$ cd /Volumes/Apple\ Express\ 500\ GB\ Backup/
-bash: cd: /Volumes/Apple Express 500 GB Backup/: No such file or directory
administrators-mac-mini:Volumes Admin$ sudo cd /Volumes/Apple\ Express\ 500\ GB\ Backup/

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:
/usr/bin/cd: line 4: cd: /Volumes/Apple Express 500 GB Backup/: No such file or directory
administrators-mac-mini:Volumes Admin$

The volume name that I have is based on the device I see in Finder under the SHARED drop-down in the left rectangular section of the window, you can see in the attachment.
 

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Ah, it's a network share, then? It won't appear under /Volumes until it's mounted, and until it's mounted, you can't do the terminal commands we've listed.

Mount the volume so that it appears on your Desktop (or wherever they appear on your system), then try the terminal commands...
Code: 
cd /Volumes
ls -la
...should list all mounted volumes, including the "Apple Express 500 GB Backup". If it doesn't, then you have not mounted the drive. If it does, then you can continue with:
Code: 
cd /Volumes/Apple\ Express\ 500\ GB\ Backup/
ls -la
...to list all files (even hidden ones) on the drive.

Edit: Also, the name of the device is "Apple Express 500 GB Backup" -- but that may not necessarily be the name of the share that is mounted under /Volumes. Be wary of this. From your screenshot, it does look like that's the name of the share, but it could appear under a different name.
 
Last edited:
When typing an password, the terminal does not show anything, thus people looking over your should can not see what you type (not even how long the password is).

Thus just type the password and RETURN.

When logged in as root, you have more access and you might see more, but as described before, it gives you more rights to do things causing a lot of damage to your drive).

If it is a network drive, root is certainly not the option as you will not gain anything more from it as the server will have full control of access rights and those are limited to the user account which logged in).

sudo ofcourse works, but if you enter a lot of commands, keep typing sudo and the password is a burden.

So first check without the root option and if anything else fails, try the root option (either way).

sudo = root access for only 1 command line.


Good luck, Kees
 
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