mount question

[Jerry Feldman]

To expand on what Chris said. 
First.
Before you fined the situation, you had /dev/sdb mounted on /var/log 
where /var was a directory under root.
You then covered that up by mounting the /var partition. 

There is no easy way to do this because the log files are in use by the 
daemon processes. 

Here is how I would approach the situation:
1. shut down to single user. 
2. mount the /var partition that contains the old log files. Rename the log 
directory to oldlog, and create a new empty directory. 
3. unmount the /var partition and transition back to multi-user. 

Your current /var/log will exist on sda as you desire. You old logs will be 
on sdb under /var/oldlog.

Once a file system is mounted on a directory, there is virtually no easy 
way to can get to any of the members of that directory. 
--
Jerry Feldman
Contractor, eInfrastructure Partner Engineering   
508-467-4315 http://www.testdrive.compaq.com/linux/

Compaq Computer Corp.
200 Forest Street MRO1-3/F1
Marlboro, Ma. 01752
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