I had an about 31GB system. I reformatted a 2TB USB between ext4 and NTFS and tried to own it some because I could not get that thing to write. After it was all done, I still had mostly showing 31GB system but Disks and System Usage Analyzer only before analysis, not after, showed about 251GB. I have since done command line clean and recovery mode clean. Both continue to exist and update as I add more files. What can I do? What could this be? I now have an about 32GB or maybe 252GB system. I have 2TB of storage so I can take this hit but still, glitch. I have and had an Ubuntu 22.04.3 desktop with Ubuntu Pro Lenovo Thinkpad T460. All as per one might be maybe or might not be maybe, maybe or maybe not, maybe.

Between the likes and maybes the only real information I can glean from your post is that your laptop's hard drive is 256Gb, your using about 32GB and trying to backup/copy to a 2TB USB drive. Your possibly having problems writing to the USB drive due to permissions.

Everything else in your post is unintelligible at least for me.

Agreed; cannot make sense of the OP's (numerous) posts either. And the whole "maybe, maybe not" trope is plain childish.

Maybe this will make it clearer for you. I had a 31GB thing, that stat has stayed on everything but Disks and Disk Usage Analyzer before analysis. After analysis Disk Usage analyzer displays 31GB like before. Both 254GB and 31GB as a reading in specific places stay and update. Do I need to fix a registry or something? One of those stats is obviously wrong. I do not need help with that USB or how to use it. I figured that part out. Thanks for trying to help. All as per one might be maybe or might not be maybe, maybe or maybe not, maybe.

Linux doesn't have a registry, you've still not explained what's going on in a way that makes sense, and you CONTINUE to post that irritating "maybe, maybe not" junk, despite being asked (by a moderator too), not to. If you don't want to ask clear questions, or display common courtesy to those trying to help you by NOT being annoying on purpose, why should we try to help you in any way???

How is saying a "31GB thing" helpful??? Where does the 254 and 31 come into play? Where is this 2TB disk?? You're making no sense.

Sorry not really.

I think the 254GB is the laptop hard drive?

What is a 31GB thing?

I know what you mean by disks and disks usage analyzer utility not but still not understanding the actual problem.

Can you post a screenshot? When you select the "Go Advanced" button you can upload jpg or png files.

Here are some screenshots all from today maybe or maybe not, maybe.

Attached Thumbnails

     

Then when you figure out if they are or not rather than the "maybe" junk you keep spouting, come back and tell us if it is or isn't.

From the screenshots the 2TB drive is your /(root) filesystem. The third screenshot shows 39.4GB used.

I don't see anything related to 256GB?

I still do not understand what problem you are trying to solve.

It is saying 1.7TB free in both Disks and Disk Usage Analyzer and upon analysis 38GB. 0.3TB is not 38GB so one obviously is wrong. What can I do about it? All storage including empty space is 2TB. All as per one might be maybe or might not be maybe, maybe or maybe not, maybe.

Beginning to think that you don't realize that the filesystem takes up some of your disk space, & usually, 5% is held in reserve for 'root'.

P.S. If you persist with this crap
a lot of people will be putting you on their 'ignore list' - including me!

Before I did stuff with USB it displayed 1.9TB free AND 31GB so is there some registry or something?

You might have deleted a file that is still open which would still show up as used space.

Post the output of the command df -h

I can't account for the numbers.
But I can not account for the other ~5%.

No registry.

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 1.6G 2.3M 1.6G 1% /run
/dev/sda2 1.9T 256G 1.5T 15% /
tmpfs 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /run/qemu
/dev/sda1 96M 32M 65M 33% /boot/efi
tmpfs 1.6G 11M 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000

What can I do to clean it? I still think I should have an about 40GB or less system so can I clean or fix anything?