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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Missing Space

mellomark - Jul 27, 2005 - 5:35 am

I recently installed a new Maxtor 80 gig hard drive in my G3 Imac. I purchased Tiger and started to rebuild my mac. Everything was working fine until I got a message that I was out of space.

This really surprised me, as I had a 40 gig drive in the Imac before, and I hadn't reinstalled all my software yet.

I have added up the space used and I have only installed about 12 gigs of programs.

I look under the apple profiler and it recognizes that I have a 80 gig drive, but says I only have 1 gig of space left.

I have tried running disc tools and it doesn't seem to free up any space.

I did reed about an issue with Norton and the auto update adding some extra files, so I did go delete those, but it was only a few megs of space.

Any ideas?

philippe99 - Jul 27, 2005 - 7:12 am

Mark
Welcome on macosx.com

(1) How do you format the new drive ? Which format: normal or extended ? Does the message occurs when booting the 1st buy or are able to play now with the mac..despite the problem of space..

(2) Could you download the 'Whatsize' freeware
http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/
and browse your drive to discover which folder(s)/file(s) are eating your drive space ? if they are unimportant, trash them

(3) Onyx
http://www.titanium.free.fr/english.html
another freeware can help you to clean the caches and other temp files..if any

Note:
To format a drive.
These steps assume you have a Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later CD:
1. Insert the Mac OS X CD.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the "C" key to start up from CD.
4. When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities.
5. Select the hard drive to erase.
6. Click the Erase tab.
7. Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu. Choose HF+ (extended)
8. if needed:
8a. Click Options.
8b Select the checkbox for "Zero all data". Zeroing dat, a lower process, will wipe your drive for any previous data on it. Unecessary fro a freshly new bought drive
8c. Click OK to quit the Options pane
10. Click Erase.

Regards
Philippe

mellomark - Jul 27, 2005 - 9:54 am

Hi Philippe,

I started with a new drive and used the Tiger Disk Utility to format in HFS+.

The message appeared when I tried to copy something, alerting me to the fact that I was low on space. The mac still works fine, it is just the fact that there is no way I have close to 80 gigs of data on the drive and it is telling me I do.

I hate to reformat the drive again, as I have spent a lot of time getting the key programs transferred over and working properly.

Something is using up my disc space. I have downloaded the Whatsize program and it is running now.

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks!

Mark

philippe99 - Jul 27, 2005 - 10:08 am

Try to run Onyx to clean zall the caches: basic + system, the latter will need a reboot

Do you run Norton ?

Have you information the Applications/Utilities/Console ?

Regards
Philippe

mellomark - Jul 27, 2005 - 10:21 am

I ran Whatsize and it showed me the same thing I was seeing in the finder, about 12 gigs accounted for. The system profiler says I only have 3.5 gigs left after some good house cleaning.

I'm running Onyx now.

mellomark - Jul 27, 2005 - 8:20 pm

Hi Philippe,

I ran Onyx and it did free up a little space, but I'm still missing almost 65 gigs woth of space.

I was not sure what you meant by "information the Applications/Utilities/Console"

Any other thoughts?

If I have to start over with a fresh install, is there a way to make a exact copy of the files I want to restore?

Thanks!!

Mark

philippe99 - Jul 28, 2005 - 3:38 am

Mark

(1) In Applications/Utilities, there is a program name Console which records everything the mac does or fails to do. Just open it, select History and browse the chapters on he left pane to see if you find some catastrophic message

(2) to make a copy of your documents, either your burn them on CD/DVD, either you copy them to a suitable place (external drive, space on the Web)

Regards
Philippe

mellomark - Jul 28, 2005 - 8:35 am

Thanks Philippe,

Any other thoughts before I start over...

Could part of the drive be bad?

Mark

philippe99 - Jul 28, 2005 - 8:46 am

Part of the drive ?
No, the drive is good or bad, not a part of it...except if you partionned it ! Do you ?

Well, as it is a new drive and as you've installed a fresh Tiger over an empty drive, there is one thing i the system which ates your space

Could you check with the maxtor support if this drive needs a firmware update ?

To be obliged to reformat this drive drives me -and you- nuts...there is something else. But I've check on the Web and find nothing.
I do not know anybody using an internal Maxtor drive.
I knowx the disease of the the external FireWire Maxtor OneTouch drive on Tiger;;but internal, no !

Regards and hope that the reformat will solve this issue. Please aware me about !

Philippe