Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Hard drive suddenly full; usual suspects don't help. Any ideas?

R

rafatmit

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 25, 2006
32
1
New Hampshire
I woke up today with my MacBook Pro's (internal, boot) hard drive completely full. It should have about 100 GB free (out of 500).

So I searched around and tried some of the common solutions: removing the sleep image; trying Omni Disk Sweeper and DaisyDisk; emptying the trash; rebooting a couple of times. They didn't help.

The really strange thing is that Omni Disk Sweeper and DaisyDisk don't see the extra space: once Omni Disk Sweeper sizes my disk, for instance, it sees a total of 388.8 GB of data, while "get info" on my hard drive says I have 497.2 GB used. But if I look at the four folders at my root level (Applications, Users, System, and Library), their reported sizes add up to 409 GB, not 497 GB.

The triggering event was likely an effort to update a SuperDuper! backup overnight: it failed after about an hour. I see entries in my Console logs for SuperDuper! and a few background processes running into trouble because of a lack of disk space, but I don't see any entry that screams "I will now create an 80-gig log file." And if there is such a file, I can't find it.

I'm running 10.6.6 and SuperDuper! 2.6.2 (v87), which is the latest version, on a recent MacBook Pro.

Any ideas? :confused:
 
Like Omni Disk Sweeper and DaisyDisk, Disk Inventory X is missing 80 GB or so of space: it just doesn't show up in its view.
 
Have you tried repairing permissions or using Disk Utility to verify or repair the disk?
 
GGJstudios said:
Have you tried repairing permissions or using Disk Utility to verify or repair the disk?
Click to expand...

Boot from your OS X install DVD and do both of these things then come back to it. Doing it within the running OS sometimes can't do what it needs to do.

Then, if you still have space missing, make sure you've got your GB and GiB straight. That could add up to ~ 35 GB on a 500 GB disc.

B
 
balamw said:
Boot from your OS X install DVD and do both of these things then come back to it. Doing it within the running OS sometimes can't do what it needs to do.

Then, if you still have space missing, make sure you've got your GB and GiB straight. That could add up to ~ 35 GB on a 500 GB disc.

B
Click to expand...

Good point on running them from another disk. I will have to do that tonight.

Definitely not a GB/GiB problem - yesterday the disk had 80 GiB free under Apple's new counting methods in 10.6, and today it has none.
 
Also try a little utility called GrandPerspective. It graphically shows the relative sized of all the files on a HD (or a folder, depending on what you choose to scan). Any big files will pop out at you, and you can then identify what and where. It's free, and I've used it in the past to find large files I couldn't easily track down.

Just Google it, it's on SourceForge I think.

Good Luck.
 
snberk103 said:
Also try a little utility called GrandPerspective. It graphically shows the relative sized of all the files on a HD (or a folder, depending on what you choose to scan). Any big files will pop out at you, and you can then identify what and where. It's free, and I've used it in the past to find large files I couldn't easily track down.

Just Google it, it's on SourceForge I think.

Good Luck.
Click to expand...

You dont read do you?
 
I've seen this exact problem twice before and I think I know the solution. I'm a bit clueless as to the cause, but what I think happens is somehow SuperDuper gets confused and ends up cloning the drive to itself. If you go to the /Volumes folder on your HD you will see aliases to all of your physical drives (this is normal), in your case you will probably also see a folder (I don't remember what it will be called). This folder will be about the 100GB you are missing. Delete the folder and reclaim your space. If you are denied access to remove the files you can use the "rm" command from the terminal to remove the folder.

In case you don't know how to access the /Volumes folder simply choose Go from the menu bar in Finder and choose Go to Folder... Then type the path of the folder which is simply /Volumes
 
rafatmit said:
The really strange thing is that Omni Disk Sweeper and DaisyDisk don't see the extra space:
Click to expand...

GGJstudios said:
Disk Inventory X will help you identify how your drive space is utilized.
Click to expand...

rafatmit said:
Like Omni Disk Sweeper and DaisyDisk, Disk Inventory X is missing 80 GB or so of space: it just doesn't show up in its view.
Click to expand...

snberk103 said:
Also try a little utility called GrandPerspective.
Click to expand...

Why run GrandPerspective when the OP already stated he used many similar apps?
 
snberk103 said:
Also try a little utility called GrandPerspective. It graphically shows the relative sized of all the files on a HD (or a folder, depending on what you choose to scan).
Click to expand...

If Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk and Omni Disk Sweeper couldn't find it, why would you expect GrandPerspective to? :p

(It seems a bit more actively developed than Disk Inventory X, so it may take its place in my toolkit, thanks).

B
 
I will second Disk Inventory X. Runaway logs or something /tmp might cover some more bases. /tmp should be clear though.
 
rafatmit said:
Good point on running them from another disk. I will have to do that tonight.

Definitely not a GB/GiB problem - yesterday the disk had 80 GiB free under Apple's new counting methods in 10.6, and today it has none.
Click to expand...

Turns out I have a boot disk here after all. Repairing permissions and repairing the volume don't seem to have done anything.

Trying dvh13's theory now.
 
dvh13 said:
I've seen this exact problem twice before and I think I know the solution. I'm a bit clueless as to the cause, but what I think happens is somehow SuperDuper gets confused and ends up cloning the drive to itself. If you go to the /Volumes folder on your HD you will see aliases to all of your physical drives (this is normal), in your case you will probably also see a folder (I don't remember what it will be called). This folder will be about the 100GB you are missing. Delete the folder and reclaim your space. If you are denied access to remove the files you can use the "rm" command from the terminal to remove the folder.

In case you don't know how to access the /Volumes folder simply choose Go from the menu bar in Finder and choose Go to Folder... Then type the path of the folder which is simply /Volumes
Click to expand...

That did it! Thank you very much. /Volumes had a folder in it with the same name as my clone, which was about 80 GB. Deleted it and now I have 80 GB free.

Thanks! Now off to submit a SuperDuper! bug report.
 
balamw said:
If Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk and Omni Disk Sweeper couldn't find it, why would you expect GrandPerspective to? :p

(It seems a bit more actively developed than Disk Inventory X, so it may take its place in my toolkit, thanks).

B
Click to expand...
Disk Inventory X appears to still be quite dead after getting a Universal Binary beta but I prefer the interface. It is getting quite old though compared to its siblings though.
 
tjb1 said:
You dont read do you?
Click to expand...

I do, thank you very much. I'm also polite.

maflynn said:
Why run GrandPerspective when the OP already stated he used many similar apps?
Click to expand...

Because every utility does things slightly differently, and therefore it might have dredged up something. Because GP is being actively developed. Because it's free and easy, and when I posted my message, the advice from dvh13 - with specific experience of the problem - hadn't been posted yet. In my experience on these boards if dvh13 hadn't solved the problem (big cheer from here) the next pieces of advice would have been to reinstall the OS. Which may or may not have solved the problem, but are certainly much more intrusive than running another file utility that might have calculated space differently and might have, at a minimum, indicated some new and useful information.
 
dvh13 said:
I've seen this exact problem twice before and I think I know the solution. I'm a bit clueless as to the cause, but what I think happens is somehow SuperDuper gets confused and ends up cloning the drive to itself. If you go to the /Volumes folder on your HD you will see aliases to all of your physical drives (this is normal), in your case you will probably also see a folder (I don't remember what it will be called). This folder will be about the 100GB you are missing. Delete the folder and reclaim your space. If you are denied access to remove the files you can use the "rm" command from the terminal to remove the folder.

In case you don't know how to access the /Volumes folder simply choose Go from the menu bar in Finder and choose Go to Folder... Then type the path of the folder which is simply /Volumes
Click to expand...

That's really good to know. I use Super Duper--no problems--but I can see how that could happen--maybe something preventing write to external--who knows--but that /Volumes tip is something I will keep just in case. :)
 
I sent the SuperDuper! folks an email letting them know about my experience, and got a response nine minutes later. It's a known issue that arises when the destination drive unmounts itself in the middle of some system calls. The destination volume disappears from /Volumes, and SuperDuper! keeps on copying data to a folder there instead. They're working on a way to detect the problem without slowing the program down too much.

The worst part of this whole experience: now I have Rosetta installed. Ah well.
 
rafatmit said:
The worst part of this whole experience: now I have Rosetta installed. Ah well.
Click to expand...

I take it you didn't see the Universal Binary version of Disk Inventory X?

Any clue why those tools didn't see it, or did you just filter it out in your head because it was in /Volumes?

B
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back