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I had installed a virtual machine in mnt/Linux-VM

This folder was supposed to be mounted on a separate partition and mistakenly I assumed so - but it was not since I have made a mistake in etc/fstab. So the VM of min. 3GB was on the system partition.

Since I had a parse error in fstab (could see this while booting - antiX Linux) I renamed that folder to LnxVM (I didn't know the error, assumed it migh). fstab is now correct, the partition is mounted to /mnt/LnxVM

But since the folder in which the VM files had been installed doesn't exist anymore, the 3GB VM file is not displayed anymore... nowhere, have seeked trash files, on the system partition but nothing.

But the 3GB are still used on the system partition as it is allmost full. Before there where around 4GB free space... How can I find and delete the lost files (virtualbox .vmdk & .vbox) ??

Thanks for every tip.

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    Does this answer your question? Is it possible to access files "shadowed" by a mount?
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented Jul 24, 2020 at 15:04
  • That needs a longer check; nerver heard of 'shadowed' files, but it might be exactly what I seek...
    – Asklep
    Commented Jul 24, 2020 at 15:12
  • @Kamil Maciorowski - It does not answer. The only information I could find are about password files which are shadowed. But his Virtualbox file, the machine more then 3GB. I can't imagine such a file could be ‘shadowed’ .
    – Asklep
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 9:28
  • Do not stick to the term that is deliberately in quotes because it's not a strict term. If you mount something to a non-empty directory (mountpoint), the former content of the directory becomes inaccessible but it still exists in its respective filesystem. The answers to the linked question allow you to gain access to the otherwise inaccessible part of the filesystem (possibly using a different path). Have you tried them? anything? Have you confirmed that the /mnt/LnxVM directory, when examined without the other filesystem "shadowing" it, is empty?
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 9:52
  • If there are files with identical names in both filesystems, use stat to tell them apart in case of doubt.
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 9:59

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The solution here is symple. I added this comment character '#' in front uf the UUID of the corrosponding partition in the fstab file in /etc in order to dissconnect this folder '/mnt/LnxVM' from it.

Now the file tree from /mnt/LnxVM is as it was before and my 'lost fiels' are displayed again.

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