Question about mv (for comp.unix.stupid)

[wa8ycd at skvax1.csc.ti.com]

Hi Y'all,

   This should probably be posted in comp.unix.really.stupid, but I
don't know how to get to that newsgroup.  :-)

   We have just put in some Sun SparcStation IPCs (and a Sparcstation 2 with
lotsa hard disk) and I was goofing around the other day and broke one of the
IPCs.

   (1) I was logged in as root which was probably my first mistake, and
   (2) I was moving (attempting to...) all the files in one sub-directory
       up one level. Here's how I (tried to...) did it:

          % cd /usr/mydir
          % ls
          mysubdir
          % ls mysubdir
          file1      file2       file3       file4
          % mv mysubdir/*  ../mydir

        WHAM!

        This is where the node stopped working.

    I admit to being dangerously ignorant about the way unix commands work,
but coming from a DOS environment, I guess I am worse off because of making
assumptions I shouldn't about what ".." means.

    Could some kind guru explain to me (in monosyllables, please!) what I did?
I've tried asking around here, and looking through several volumes of books and
have not found an answer. [[at least, not one I am comfortable with!]]

    SYMPTOM:  /bin seemed to be clobbered. It showed up as a "bad directory"
              when we tried to "cd" to it. "ls" and other commands were not
              available since /bin was not valid.

Thanks,

Bob West       WA8YCD
Texas Instruments Inc.
DSEG Human Resource Development
Dallas TX
(214) 917-1908
rlwest at flopn2.csc.ti.com