How to see which drive a file is on

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There is no such thing as a drive.

You have a location where the partition has been mounted - if it is automounted the location is

/run/media/$USER/some-name-or-uuid

Example is one of my usb

/run/media/fh/WDUSB-ISO/

If I list the content

 $ ls /run/media/fh/WDUSB-ISO/
angler-opm7.181205.001-factory-b75ce068.zip
archlinux-x86_64.bak.iso
archlinux-x86_64.iso
EndeavourOS_Cassini_neo_22_12.iso
en-us_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_d289cf96.DpdLmrgO.iso.part
en-us_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_d289cf96.iso
FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso
GhostBSD-22.06.18.iso
HBCD_PE_x64.iso
manjaro-kde-22.0-minimal-221224-linux61.iso
pclinuxos64-kde-2022.12.iso
pclinuxos64-kde-darkstar-2022.12.30.iso
Qubes-R4.1.1-x86_64.iso
siduction-22.1-Masters_of_War-kde-amd64-202212291659.iso
systemrescue-9.06-amd64.iso
w10decrap.ps1
Win10_21H2_Danish_x64.iso
Win10_22H2_EnglishInternational_x64.iso
Win2019_x64.iso
wonky-vm.ova

The location is a tree with branches and leaves - actually - the package tree contains a command to visualize the content of the system tree

This is just one level

 $ tree / -L 1
/
├── a
├── bin -> usr/bin
├── boot
├── dev
├── etc
├── home
├── lib -> usr/lib
├── lib64 -> usr/lib
├── lost+found
├── mnt
├── opt
├── proc
├── root
├── run
├── sbin -> usr/bin
├── srv
├── sys
├── tmp
├── usr
└── var

Let’s take a branch

 $ tree /usr -L 1
/usr
├── bin
├── include
├── lib
├── lib32
├── lib64 -> lib
├── local
├── sbin -> bin
├── share
└── src

Or a home folder - not a common layout - I admit that

 $ tree /home -L 2
/home
└── fh
    ├── Desktop
    ├── Documents -> /a/private/.home/Documents
    ├── Downloads -> /a/private/.home/Downloads
    ├── Music -> /a/private/.home/Music
    ├── Pictures -> /a/private/.home/Pictures
    ├── Postman -> /a/private/.home/Postman
    ├── Public -> /a/private/.home/Public
    ├── Templates -> /a/private/.home/Templates
    ├── Videos -> /a/private/.home/Videos
    └── VirtualBox VMs -> /a/virtualbox
  • / - where everything starts
  • /home/user - is a user’s home folder
  • /run/media - is a volatile structure which only exist at runtime
  • /run/media/user/some-uuid-or-name - is a partition mounted automagically by the system

Mounts can also be defined to be static - in which case the file /etc/fstab or a mount unit is used for defining What, Where and How a partition is mounted.

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