No space left on device -Solved-

PhileDealer · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

Hi guys, I've been keeping an eye on gentoo for the better part of 4 years now, and decided I want to grab my computer by the short hairs and squeeze all i can out of it. During the install I get this odd error:

cp: cannot create regular file '/mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf' : No space left on device.

I thought this was a bit odd, so I ran df

Filesystem Use% Mounted on
(more here such as CD but left out)
/dev/hda3 62% /mnt/gentoo
/dev/hda1 2% /mnt/gentoo/boot

I've done a search on the forums but didn't turn up too much on this topic. I'm hoping I've just overlooked something very simple.

Thanks for the advise guys!

Hm, after closer inspection, it seems I only see 2 gigs of a 20 gig drive. I guess this means I need to play in the bios

(edit spelling > me)

erik258 · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:24 pm Post subject:

I take it you figured this out ... hopefully it's a partitioning error. If the computer is old enough to choke on bigger drives (isn't there a ~2 gb limit on really ancient boxes?) you might need to give the kernel boot parameter

PhileDealer · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

I'll give that a try stroke option when I get home. The machine is an old crappy eMachines 600mhz, but it is the original hdd in it. There is around 700mb left free on the drive. I didn't think the resolve file was that large. It must just be a glitch in my partition.

Thanks for the tip!

pdw_hu · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject:

frostschutz · Advocate Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: Germany

when using 'df' always also check 'df -i'

unfortunately it's easy to run out of inodes on ext2/3 with bad (default) settings

rrbrussell · n00b Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 64

PhileDealer · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

Well I tried all that was suggested and this hdd was still being stubborn. df -h said 3% used and df -i showed 2%. I even pulled out the drive and gave it a hug then started the install over with same results. I just happened to have another old ide drive kickin around that was 40 gig and shazam, full 40 gigs of love showed in fdisk -l. I'm sure my wife was up a few nights ago pulling gigabytes out of the drive with tweezers as I always leave the case open on this machine, just to keep me on my toes

.

Thanks again guys!