shrinking hard drive?

[Blanka]

I need to reinitialize my drive after crash, I did get all my stuff off the drive.
Now I'm ready to reinstall 10.3.9 and I do get a big surprise, the size of it had changed?
My drive size went from 57+GB to 31+GB.
Do you think i need new hard drive? is this one toast or it is just some error that could be fixed? What is really going on?
I feel like I'm in Twilight Zone
Blanka

[barhar]

'I need to reinitialize my drive after crash', no - not necessarily. You could boot from the 'Panther' installation disc, and use its 'Disk Utility' to (attempt to) repair the (unknown model) Macintosh's boot drive. Including repairing its disk permissions.

'I did get all my stuff off the drive. Now I'm ready to reinstall 10.3.9 and I do get a big surprise, the size of it had changed? ... My drive size went from 57+GB to 31+GB.' The values of 57 and 31 GB's, are these the 'Capacity' or the 'Available' values that changed? Use 'Get Info' ('Command I' or 'Finder's 'File, Get Info' menu item) to determine these values.

'I feel like I'm in Twilight Zone, so do we ...

You do realize that 'cache' files are saved in the '~/Library/Caches/' folder (of each user account), and then there are the virtual memory 'swapfiles' that reside in the '/var/vm/' folder, etc. Each removing space available to the Mac's users.

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Regardless of what you say above - when you are re-installing the 'Panther', click on the 'Options' button - select the 'Erase and Install' radio button, and continue though the installation process.

After the installation, do a 'Get Info' on the boot drive. The 'Capacity' value listed should be the maximum space available to all users of that Macintosh.