Really Stuffed Now
I can't work out what is causing this problem, but over time the entire data disk fills up. Twice I have recovered the machine to a useable state by locating and deleting large directories, but this time I was too late and the machine has stuffed itself and now refuses to let me login.
I need to establish what the cause is, as there is clearly something amiss - and it isn't log files - they would never fill hundreds of Gbs in a number of weeks. Most importantly, however, I need to regain control of the server so that we can have our files back.
I can gain access to the machine using a live disk (SuSe, or Knoppix), but they refuse to let me create a RAID using the existing pair of data disks; they want to format the disks, which clearly I don't want to do. A possibility is to disconnect the 2 data disks and reboot onto the OS disk, reset the partition tables, reboot and try to remount the data disks, but I am anxious that I risk losing my data. Thoughts anyone?
And yes, the backup is fairly recent, but not that recent!