8.0-RELEASE upgrade -- no files visible

[Andrew Hamilton-Wright]

I have a puzzler.

After postponing an upgrade from 7.2 to 8.0 for some time,
I now am attempting to make the transition.

In the 7.2 install, I have one "dangerously dedicated" disk used
only for backup (the accommodation of which is why I postponed
the install in the first place), as well as a boot disk that was
set up using slices.  In addition, I have an external USB mass
storage device that I have placed level 0 dumps of all
filesystems upon.

When I install 8.0 to a fresh disk (which is then set up using
sysinstall), I can boot off the fresh disk and see all of the
just-installed files perfectly.

Here is the puzzler:  if I boot 8.0, and mount any filesystem
that was created by 7.2 or earlier, I cannot see any files.
This includes both the non-DD internal disk (which is the boot
disk for 7.2), as well as the external USB mass storage
(formatted using UFS, but also not a DD setup).

To add to the puzzle, df reports a usage number that reflects
the block allocation, but ls does not report any filesystem
entries.


My primary objective is to make the dump files available under
8.0, so I tried booting 7.2 again, mounting my new (empty)
/home partition and placing the files there -- this seemed
to work as seen under 7.2, however when I rebooted using 8.0,
there are again no files visible in this partition.


Does anyone have any ideas on:
(a) what the underlying problem could be (noting that although
     I have a DD disk, it is not involved in this process in any
     way) -- especially given that it seems to affect the
     filesystems on the external drive, or

(b) what a path might be to getting the dump files to the
     new system so that I can use it?  (I should mention that
 	the dumps are rather huge (~100Gb), so a network based
 	solution is rather unpalatable).


Any input appreciated,
Andrew.