HELP PLEASE!!!! *virus*

[nicole82467]

please, i need help...

there's a problem with my imac. yesterday, there was 20 GB of space left. This morning, there was 11 GB left. Now, there's 0 kb left. NO SPACE. it all just disappeared! it's as if there's something eating up all of the memory. norton antivirus doesn't work and can't solve any problems. no applications can be downloaded, nothing can be changed, because there's no memory for anything additional. i used some sort of program that is supposed to detect where all the memory is... it is a strange file, that, when looked for, is invisible. the detector says it's there but it's not. it's like an invisible file.

PLEASE i need help. is there a way to solve this without erasing the hard drive? my whole entire family's everything is on that computer! photos, movies, music, emails... everything!

oh, and deleting stuff doesn't work.. the file just eats up the space that was just deleted.

please, im so desperate...

 

[Eidorian]

Reboot your computer.

 

[danm]

please, i need help...

there's a problem with my imac. yesterday, there was 20 GB of space left. This morning, there was 11 GB left. Now, there's 0 kb left. NO SPACE. it all just disappeared! it's as if there's something eating up all of the memory. norton antivirus doesn't work and can't solve any problems. no applications can be downloaded, nothing can be changed, because there's no memory for anything additional. i used some sort of program that is supposed to detect where all the memory is... it is a strange file, that, when looked for, is invisible. the detector says it's there but it's not. it's like an invisible file.

PLEASE i need help. is there a way to solve this without erasing the hard drive? my whole entire family's everything is on that computer! photos, movies, music, emails... everything!

oh, and deleting stuff doesn't work.. the file just eats up the space that was just deleted.

please, im so desperate...

Have you installed anything recently requireing your admin password?

 

[nicole82467]

no, i haven't installed anything for a while... my brother downloaded one song from limewire, but that seems to be ok.

is reebooting just like shutting down?

 

[Eidorian]

no, i haven't installed anything for a while... my brother downloaded one song from limewire, but that seems to be ok.

is reebooting just like shutting down?

Rebooting is having your computer shut down and turn itself back on. It sounds like a Virtual Memory issue.


Apple Button (Upper Left Corner)> Restart > Confirm the Restart

 

[nicole82467]

Rebooting is having your computer shut down and turn itself back on.

Apple Button (Upper Left Corner)> Restart > Confirm the Restart

right.. i knew that. i just always call it restart. anyway, doesn't work.

i think it's a virus

 

[evil_santa]

'Restart' in the apple menu, or shutdown and restart the computer.

 

[yellow]

i think it's a virus

It's NOT a virus.. unless you're the first Mac OS X user to get one since OS X was introduced (almost) 5 years ago..

Use whatsize or DiskSweeper to see what is using up all your disk space.

I suggest you not delete things UNLESS you are 100% sure that you can safely delete them.

 

[nicole82467]

It's NOT a virus.. unless you're the first Mac OS X user to get one since OS X was introduced.

ok good to know

 

[Peace]

There is a difference between memory and HD space..

Click on the apple icon at the top left and click about this mac then on the More Info button..The system Profiler will load up.

Select Serial-ATA ( or whichever ata has the HD ) and look to see what the capacity is and what the available is..
Then report what it says..

It could very well be your virtual memory has taken up the last space in your HD.

 

[Applespider]

And consider getting rid of Norton unless you're working in dual Mac/PC environments; it can cause more problems than it saves with no current viruses available for the Mac. I'm sure there was a case of Norton sucking hard drive space at one point thanks to a temp file that wasn't deleting correctly after a scan.

 

[nicole82467]

There is a difference between memory and HD space..

Click on the apple icon at the top left and click about this mac then on the More Info button..The system Profiler will load up.

Select Serial-ATA ( or whichever ata has the HD ) and look to see what the capacity is and what the available is..
Then report what it says..

It could very well be your virtual memory has taken up the last space in your HD.

it says the capacity is 75 gb
and it says there's 0 kb available

maybe i do have the first ever mac virus...

 

[yellow]

it says the capacity is 75 gb
and it says there's 0 kb available

maybe i do have the first ever mac virus...

Yeah.. you're not. Read below.

Use whatsize or DiskSweeper to see what is using up all your disk space.

I suggest you not delete things UNLESS you are 100% sure that you can safely delete them.

 

[Peace]

it says the capacity is 75 gb
and it says there's 0 kb available

maybe i do have the first ever mac virus...

It's not...

Clear out all your cache's..

Instead of shut down/reboot do a "hard" shutdown..
Hold the powerbutton until the Mac shuts down..
Wait a couple minutes while the cache clears temporarily..

Start it up
Do a fix permissions in Applications>Utilites>Disk Utility..

If you still have no space just try to delete some large file and empty the trash bin..A movie or something you really dont need.

Then look and see if it shows any space..

 

[nicole82467]

Yeah.. you're not. Read below.

yeah and it found a file thats taking all the space, but it won't even let me delete it. it simple just doesnt work. it shows the location of the file, but then when i look there, its invisible.. not there. its an invisible file thats eating all the space



anyway, thanks for everyones help.. i dont think ill be able to solve this, im hoping my dad will

 

[nicole82467]

It's not...

Clear out all your cache's..

Instead of shut down/reboot do a "hard" shutdown..
Hold the powerbutton until the Mac shuts down..
Wait a couple minutes while the cache clears temporarily..

Start it up
Do a fix permissions in Applications>Utilites>Disk Utility..

If you still have no space just try to delete some large file and empty the trash bin..A movie or something you really dont need.

Then look and see if it shows any space..

thanks, ill try

 

[Peace]

yeah and it found a file thats taking all the space, but it won't even let me delete it. it simple just doesnt work. it shows the location of the file, but then when i look there, its invisible.. not there. its an invisible file thats eating all the space



anyway, thanks for everyones help.. i dont think ill be able to solve this, im hoping my dad will

Please list here the complete path of the "hidden" file..

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

It's extremely unlikely that you have a virus.

But, to be one the safe side, back up all the documents you need.

 

[yellow]

IInstead of shut down/reboot do a "hard" shutdown..
Hold the powerbutton until the Mac shuts down..
Wait a couple minutes while the cache clears temporarily..

What? Cache doesn't magically clear out when the comptuer is shut down. Cache has to be physically removed. Which cache are you talking about?

Start it up
Do a fix permissions in Applications>Utilites>Disk Utility..

I don't see the need for this, as it's clearly a missing disk space problem, rather than a permissions problem.

yeah and it found a file thats taking all the space, but it won't even let me delete it. it simple just doesnt work. it shows the location of the file, but then when i look there, its invisible.. not there. its an invisible file thats eating all the space

Which file, please? Complete path.

 

[lexfuzo]

log files

Some driver gone wild may cause your system-log bloat.
Log-files you may delete without any danger.

Read this for further information:
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/s...=737171&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=31&fpart=

 

[nicole82467]

Please list here the complete path of the "hidden" file..

my dad's on the imac doing some weird stuff with it so i cant check right now

but the file is called "system.log" and it says it's in a folder called "private"... but when going to the location of the folder, there is none there. no folder called private, no file called system.log

 

[nicole82467]

Some driver gone wild may cause your system-log bloat.
Log-files you may delete without any danger.

Read this for further information:
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/s...=737171&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=31&fpart=

that looks helpful..thanks

 

[yellow]

You can remove it with the terminal.

However, the fact that it's grown so large is a very good indicator that there's something else amiss here.

You should open Terminal.app and do this:

sudo periodic daily

Enter your admin password and wait. This will run the /etc/daily script (part of which) automatically rotates and compresses /var/log/system.log. You don't want to outright remove it because it needs to be looked at to determine the problem. after it's rotated and compressed it can be viewed using the Console.app.

If you feel the need to just remove it:

sudo rm /var/log/system.log

Enter your admin password.. byebye system.log. Hello diskspace.

 

[lexfuzo]

yeah and it found a file thats taking all the space, but it won't even let me delete it.

In terminal:
cd /directory/where/the/file/is
rm -f file

Be careful with this command, it will delete every file without asking and there's no undo!

 

[nicole82467]

well, thanks everyone. im going to try all of that tomorrow.. going to bed now. thanks for the help