Deleted files still taking up space

[johny why]

sorry 'bout that! forgot i still have not added the partition to fstab (is there a gnome gui for auto-mounting internal partitions?)

jack@boombox:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for jack: 

Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0003a72b

Device     Boot    Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1           2048  19533297  19531250   9.3G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       40962048 976773119 935811072 446.2G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       39010302  40962047   1951746   953M  5 Extended
/dev/sda4  *    19533824  39008433  19474610   9.3G 83 Linux
/dev/sda5       39010304  40962047   1951744   953M 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

jack@boombox:~$ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1954232k,nr_inodes=488558,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=393072k,mode=755)
/dev/sda4 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset,clone_children)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=32,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=393072k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
/dev/sda2 on /media/jack/MyStuff type ext2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uhelper=udisks2)

[coffeecat]

sorry 'bout that! forgot i still have not added the partition to fstab (is there a gnome gui for auto-mounting internal partitions?)

Let's not complicate things just at the moment. There's a simple command to change the ownership of all your files and the ext2 filesystem below. Then we can look at how you mount the partition. There is no GUI that I can recommend apart from what you are doing at the moment with nautilus. But it's easy enough to add a line to fstab manually once we've sorted out ownerships.

First – open a root nautilus with gksudo nautilus and delete the .Trash-0 folder and all contents. I don't think it matters if we change the ownership of that from root, but it might as well be got out the way, as you probably won't need one in the future. Once you've done that, from a terminal:

sudo chown -R jack: /media/jack/MyStuff

Now test the partition. Are you now able to drag and drop copy stuff into it from an ordinary (not root) nautilus?

Edit: Also, post the output of:

sudo blkid

And I'll help you with a fstab line for sda2.

[johny why]

delete the .Trash-0 folder and all contents. I don't think it matters if we change the ownership of that from root, but it might as well be got out the way, as you probably won't need one in the future.

need one what? and why 'probably'?

sudo chown -R jack: /media/jack/MyStuff

thx for that, but i found that command already, and elected not to. i feel making one user the owner is not the right approach for me. i access this partition from multiple OS's, which is why i use a separate partition for data files instead of putting them in Home dir. i do not use Home. Also, i may create new users on this OS which i would like to have access to that partition automatically. So that is why i don't want to give jack ownership of the partition.

therefor, my plan was to give some group full access to the partition-- a group that all non-root users are automatically part of anyway. "users", i think? i did not yet figure out how to give a group read/write access to the partition.

then i noticed the default account (jack) was part of an administrator group, and i don't want to use the machine as admin for daily use (why is the default account an admin? seems unsafe).

therefor, my plan was to create a new non-admin account for daily use (after i figured out how to give a group read/write access to the partition).

then i noticed jack was no longer an admin, but is now "custom". No idea what it means yet, or how that happened, or what to do about it, but i don't like it. Haven't figured that out yet.

jack@boombox:~$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for jack: 
/dev/sda1: LABEL="os2" UUID="65600c91-b1bc-40fd-a890-ce3d665c96f9" TYPE="ext4" PTTYPE="dos" PARTUUID="0003a72b-01"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="MyStuff" UUID="20bcdb5c-e5bb-4f0c-bc74-4aef7ac74770" TYPE="ext2" PARTUUID="0003a72b-02"
/dev/sda4: LABEL="puppyos" UUID="4174d51e-a7a6-47af-941f-d04541b34570" TYPE="ext4" PTTYPE="dos" PARTUUID="0003a72b-04"
/dev/sda5: UUID="ca3bcd5c-d70d-49a7-8cae-646dd95fc93e" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="0003a72b-05"

I'll help you with a fstab line for sda2.

Really appreciate that, but i already know how.

sorry this topic has gone in a whole different direction than the OP.

THX!