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TICKET ARCHIVE -> HD using up space without saving files

ripetungi - Aug 7, 2006 - 6:06 am

Am using a imac flat panel G4 running MacOSX 10.3.9. My HD (maxtor 4D040H2) keeps filling up without me saving anything. To explain - I delete some files of my HD and empty the trash and the HD reads that it as increased space. However, I can be using the machine and space fills up. I cleared 4 GB an hour ago and now the HD has used up 3 GB of that space and all i did as save and open some files about 20 MB or so. Have tried using the verify disk and repair disk options from the disk utility, which only went a little way before it returned the message - lost connection to the disk management tool. I'm not running any anti virus software and have closed all my ports to the internet, althought had the HTTP port open (81) i think.
What it happening? Had never had this happen before and can't find anything on the net. Is it a virus, backing up files automatically??
I'm lost and need to sort it otherwise I can't use my mac (which i love).
Can you help please.
many thanks for your time.

Drumhum - Aug 7, 2006 - 10:26 am

Hi repetungi,

This does sound rather strange behaviour!

Firstly, I am sure you do not have a virus. One can never say never of course, but if you did have a virus it would be major news to the mac community - you'd be the first to have one!

I am assuming this is an external disk - not your main internal disk that contains the OS.

Some software makes use of cache files, or maintains a "history" of changes or edits you make and this can grow on a disk significantly. Photoshop for eg uses its "scratch disk" folders to keep back-ups of your work so that you can go back to before you made edits and changes to your file. Taking 3GB in an hour to do this job, does sound rather big though, but then there is software that could do this (particularly video edit software or photoshop - if you are editing very large picture files).

Have you set up any back-up software to auto-save docs etc to your external drive? this could well occur in the background.

Do you know where or what is taking up that hard disk space? I mean is there a folder on the disk for eg that seems to be growing? One way to work out if there is a 'growing folder" is to show double click your hard disk icon and make the window that opens display the folders in "list view" (click the middle button in upper left hand corner of the open window that looks like four horizontal lines). Now go to the "View" menu and select "show view options" and click the first button "for this window only" and check the bottom box "calculate all sizes". Now (perhaps after a while) you should see the size of all folders in that window. Observe which folders, if any seem to be growing in size (eg check back in an hour or so) if there is clearly one folder growing then open that folder and if it contains other folders use the same procedure to work out which of those folders is growing. repeat until you find the offending folder that is growing and this might point to what is actually happening. It could be that no folder is at "fault" and that its the disk drive that is just working odd etc

If you are absolutely sure it is doing something it shouldn't be then there clearly is a problem! What does concern me is that you got an error with diskutility.

To rule out any OS problems you should start the computer up from your OS install dvd/cd - insert the disk and restart while keeping the "c" key held down. after a longer-than-normal boot time you should be able to select disk utility from the menu at the top of the screen. Of course, do not re-install any software etc! Now perform a "repair disk", making sure that your external drive is selected.

DiskUtility is pretty good but the best software to use to keep disks healthy, in my opinion is Disk Warrior. Its worth every penny and frankly I wouldn't live without it. Its rescued many drives and much data for me in the past and often works when diskutility doesn't. It can fix more problems too. If you don't have it, do consider getting it. see www.alsoft.com

If you still get errors with diskutility/diskwarrior then I feel you have a fault with your external drive. This could be a problem with the formating which is fixable by re-fomatting but it could be a hardware fault which usually isn't fixable. Either way if the you can't fix things due to that error then you must back-up your disk immediately.

Hopefully, re-fomating the drive will bring it back to normal but of course you will loose all data on the drive with this process. The easiest way to back things up quickly is to get another drive to copy stuff to. Perhaps borrow one?

In summary I would...
Double check that the data being used up isn't "normal", that you haven't got some software legitimately using up the space etc.
try diskutility a few more times and while the computer is booted up from an OS CD or DCD
Try DiskWarrior - if that can't fix things nothing will!
re-format the drive with diskutility.

If you do re-format the drive, still keep a close eye on things. Often unusual disk behaviour can be a strong sign that something catastrophic is about to happen soon. So perhaps keep things backed up very carefully. It shouldn't cause issues with your computer's internal drive though.

Let me know how you get on and feel free to get back to me if there is something I can help further with (or if I've missed something!)


regards

Tom

- Aug 8, 2006 - 8:48 am

dear Tom

many thanks for your quick reply. It was a temp file using up over 2 G of space which I found with a third party application. This cleared the space and seems now to be working fine.

However, like you I am concerned about the disk utility not working probably. But am a little scared of using the OS install disk in case install something I shouldn't and destory everything. Will do as you said with the OS install disk because want to run the disk utility too.

Many thanks

robin

ripetungi - Aug 8, 2006 - 12:56 pm

Dear Tom

Tried the disk utility from the install disk, however forgot to mention that it is the internal OS start up disk. Therefore, it said don't repair or verfiy the start up disk. So didn't.
So should I download disk utility again and try to run it again ?

cheers

robin

Drumhum - Aug 10, 2006 - 6:04 am

Sorry I've taken longer to reply to your query. There was a bit of a technical "issue" with macosx :-( All sorted now though :-)

Its good news you've found what was eating up your disk space and its not down to some sort of fault, as such.

Its pretty hard to install or erase something by accident - you will be asked "are you sure" etc before anything actually happens.

To repair your internal OS drive your computer has to have access to a different OS/disk to function: The OS cannot work on a disk if it needs the disk itself to function. Your install DVD/cd has a basic OS on it so that your computer can use that instead of its usual start-up disk. You get the computer to do this by:

Insert the DVD/cd
Now re-start the computer but when you hear that start-up chime press and hold the "c" key. (this makes it look for the OS on the dvd/cd rather than its internal drive)
The start-up process will seem to take a much longer (my computer seems to take ages doing this!), but keep your finger on that "c" key until the end of the start-up process. You should notice the start-up screen looks different.
Follow any onscreen instructions until the menu bar at the top of the screen appears with the "Utilities" menu in it, and then choose Utilities > Open Disk Utility.
Now "repair disk" in the familiar way.
Assuming all goes well you should be able to restart the computer in the usual way and it will start-up from the usual internal start-up disk.

Also there is a bit more detail in diskutility's help menu. Particularly the section "Testing and repairing your startup disk"

Feel free to get back to me on this. Let me know how you get on;-)


regards

Tom