Since bug 118303 has been resolved, there is another tool you can use. It is called blktrace and has a wrapper script called btrace that will spit out a (mostly) human readable format of what processes are eating your disk up.
Type mount to see what volumes / partitions you have mounted. Here is an example from my machine: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ mount /dev/sda5 on / type ext3 (rw,noatime,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) /sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755) varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777) udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.22-11-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw) /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,noatime) /dev/sda7 on /home type ext3 (rw,noatime) securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) Since / is mounted on /dev/sda5, the actual device file is /dev/sda. Run 'sudo btrace /dev/sda' it will spit out a list (edited for brevity) of what processes are monopolizing your disk. [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/boot$ sudo btrace /dev/sda [sudo] password for jeff: 8,0 0 1 0.000000000 4788 Q W 2607452 + 8 [syslogd] 8,0 0 2 0.000007077 4788 G W 2607452 + 8 [syslogd] 8,0 0 3 0.000011407 4788 P R [syslogd] 8,0 0 4 0.000013104 4788 I W 2607452 + 8 [syslogd] 8,0 0 5 0.000036993 2640 U R [kjournald] 1 8,0 0 6 0.000043375 2640 D W 2607452 + 8 [kjournald] 8,0 0 7 0.000424356 0 C W 2607452 + 8 [0] 8,0 0 8 0.000465454 2640 Q W 1036180 + 8 [kjournald] 8,0 0 9 0.000467807 2640 G W 1036180 + 8 [kjournald] 8,0 0 10 0.000469107 2640 P R [kjournald] 8,0 0 11 0.000469898 2640 I W 1036180 + 8 [kjournald] 8,0 0 12 0.000472288 2640 Q W 1036188 + 8 [kjournald] 8,0 0 13 0.000474546 2640 M W 1036188 + 8 [kjournald] Note that this is on a gutsy system. Try the btrace command and paste the output here. -- hard disk being accessed every 4 sec. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/17878 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is a direct subscriber. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs