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My Windows 8.1 doesn't boot anymore, so I want do a backup of the files contained on Windows to an external hard disk by using an Ubuntu live distro.

Before doing that I need more free space on the external drive without formatting it, so I'm trying to delete some files and folders. When I delete them, they don't appear anymore but the size of the free space on the external disk doesn't change.

When I deleted a larger folder, a message said it was too large and would be deleted permanently, and then the size of the free space in the external disk increased.

For I need more free space on the externaal disk, I suppose I should look for a Recycle Bin and clear its content...

Where may I find this Recycle Bin on the external drive (to completely delete the selected files) from Linux?

franz1
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    You did not specify how you deleted them ;-) See https://askubuntu.com/questions/34296/why-does-deleting-a-file-on-a-usb-stick-not-free-up-space if done with Nautilus. There might be a ".Trash" in the root directory BUT when removing from command line there is not trash involved. removed = gone. If from a desktop: use shift-delete That will skip the bin too ;) – Rinzwind Jan 28 '18 at 12:58
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    Ok then press control-h on the highest dir on the external disk and see the .Trash/ directory. There it'll be. – Rinzwind Jan 28 '18 at 15:23

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sometimes when you delete files on a usb drive they get put in a hidden file .trash or something like that. Do a ls -a on the usb drive and see what hidden files there are. If there is a .trash do a rm -rf to that file.

If you are navigating to the directory from the gui you should be able to right click and select "open in terminal" and execute the ls -a and rm -rf "filename" from the terminal that way. Sometimes its easier to navigate via gui than try and get to a mounted usb drive.

JesseMP
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