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BIG PROBLEM: Shrinking hard drive with disk utility issue

T

themidget123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 15, 2012
5
0
So I tried to compress my Macbook Pro 8,1's main hard drive to create another partition for Windows 7. But the computer crashed while disk utility was shrinking the main hard drive and when I rebooted the computer, my hard drive was magically filled up. Out of 500 GB, I used to have around 283 GB left, but now I have 26 gigs....... any suggestions?? :confused:
 
simsaladimbamba said:
To find out, where you hard drive capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:
Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.

And what method did you use to COMPRESS the contents of your Macintosh HD?
Click to expand...

I used disk utility in "Utilities" to compress my hard drive.
The applications didn't seem to identify the 200GB-big hidden/"magical" file. ):
 
Last edited:
themidget123 said:
Thanks! I'll try it out. I used disk utility in "Utilities" to compress my hard drive.
Click to expand...

But what exact procedure did you use, as I can't find any way to actually compress my volumes or HDDs in Disk Utility? The procedure you used may actually explain, what happened, as I vaguely assume, that you compressed the contents of your Macintosh HD volume into another file, which could explain the missing disk space.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
But what exact procedure did you use, as I can't find any way to actually compress my volumes or HDDs in Disk Utility? The procedure you used may actually explain, what happened, as I vaguely assume, that you compressed the contents of your Macintosh HD volume into another file, which could explain the missing disk space.
Click to expand...

I went to disk utility to partition my computer. I first clicked on my main HD (500.11GB Toshiba MK5065GSXF) and then clicked on the partition tab. I clicked my main HD and set the size to 250GB, thus giving me another 250 GB of unallocated space. Then I clicked on apply, but as my laptop was shrinking the main HD, it crashed. And now I'm faced with this huge issue where I'm trying to recover my HD prior to when I attempted to shrink it.
 
themidget123 said:
I went to disk utility to partition my computer. I first clicked on my main HD (500.11GB Toshiba MK5065GSXF) and then clicked on the partition tab. I clicked my main HD and set the size to 250GB, thus giving me another 250 GB of unallocated space. Then I clicked on apply, but as my laptop was shrinking the main HD, it crashed. And now I'm faced with this huge issue where I'm trying to recover my HD prior to when I attempted to shrink it.
Click to expand...

Okay, that was not really the way to do this, and you didn't compress your data, you just resized your partitions.
Do you have a backup? Do you have an external HDD you could install Mac OS X onto in case you don't have a backup and need to actually recover files from the internal HDD?

To retrieve files, that have been deleted and also been emptied from the Trash or are on unrecognisable partitions or HDDs, you can use
Data Rescue 3 (trial lets you scan the HDD and see, if data is recoverable, but to actually recover files, you need to buy the full version for 99 USD) or
FileSalvage (trial lets you scan the HDD and see, if data is recoverable, but to actually recover files, you need to buy the full version for 89.95 USD).
DiskDrill - lets you recover data from HFS/HFS+, FAT, NTFS & other file systems right on your Mac.​

Also know, that you should immediately stop any writing processes to the actual HDD. If it is the same HDD as the one your operating system (OS) resides on, it is better to use an external HDD with Mac OS X on to boot from and install Data Rescue or FileSalvage onto to scan the HDD from which the data has been accidentally deleted.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Okay, that was not really the way to do this, and you didn't compress your data, you just resized your partitions.
Do you have a backup? Do you have an external HDD you could install Mac OS X onto in case you don't have a backup and need to actually recover files from the internal HDD?

To retrieve files, that have been deleted and also been emptied from the Trash or are on unrecognisable partitions or HDDs, you can use
Data Rescue 3 (trial lets you scan the HDD and see, if data is recoverable, but to actually recover files, you need to buy the full version for 99 USD) or
FileSalvage (trial lets you scan the HDD and see, if data is recoverable, but to actually recover files, you need to buy the full version for 89.95 USD).
DiskDrill - lets you recover data from HFS/HFS+, FAT, NTFS & other file systems right on your Mac.​

Also know, that you should immediately stop any writing processes to the actual HDD. If it is the same HDD as the one your operating system (OS) resides on, it is better to use an external HDD with Mac OS X on to boot from and install Data Rescue or FileSalvage onto to scan the HDD from which the data has been accidentally deleted.
Click to expand...

Haha, I know. Seems complex. Would it work if I just backed up my main HD and reinstalled OS X?
 
themidget123 said:
Haha, I know. Seems complex. Would it work if I just backed up my main HD and reinstalled OS X?
Click to expand...

If you can lose the data on your Windows side and no data needs to be recovered from the Mac OS X side, sure, you can do a Clean Install.


To create a Clean Install (formerly known as Erase & Install) of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (the 29 USD Upgrade DVD is a fully working retail version of Mac OS X and does not need a prior installation of Mac OS X on the Mac), follow one of the following guides:
Perform a Clean Install of OS X Lion on Your Mac
 
simsaladimbamba said:
If you can lose the data on your Windows side and no data needs to be recovered from the Mac OS X side, sure, you can do a Clean Install.


To create a Clean Install (formerly known as Erase & Install) of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (the 29 USD Upgrade DVD is a fully working retail version of Mac OS X and does not need a prior installation of Mac OS X on the Mac), follow one of the following guides:
Perform a Clean Install of OS X Lion on Your Mac
Click to expand...

Oh, okay. Thank you for all the help! :D
 
themidget123 said:
I went to disk utility to partition my computer. I first clicked on my main HD (500.11GB Toshiba MK5065GSXF) and then clicked on the partition tab. I clicked my main HD and set the size to 250GB, thus giving me another 250 GB of unallocated space. Then I clicked on apply, but as my laptop was shrinking the main HD, it crashed. And now I'm faced with this huge issue where I'm trying to recover my HD prior to when I attempted to shrink it.
Click to expand...


Themidget123, it may be too late to help your issue as it seems this thread ends with you doing a clean install. I have encountered the same issue and was able to recover. I made this account to share how, for all who might follow the same bad advice from Simsaladimbamba. It is not necessary to reinstall Mac OS to recover, and your initial use of Disk Utility to resize the partition was correct.

I had a freeze/crash while shrinking my Macintosh HD partition with Disk Utility, the screen simply stopped updating, but after a frozen progress bar animation and no interactivity for 30 minutes (other than a mouse pointer) I forced a shutdown by holding down the power button. It rebooted clean, but now I had Themidget123's issue: Macintosh HD was reporting the original pre-shrunken capacity, but the used and available space was incorrect. The missing space is easily explained, the values reported for used and available were correct had the shrinking operation succeeded.

This condition is called an "Invalid volume free block count" and is something Disk Utility checks for and automatically repairs during "Repair Disk".

Simple procedure:

Open Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD, on the First Aid tab click "Verify Disk". This will run and report in red "The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired". The complication here is Disk Utility cannot repair the disk of the running OS, so you will need to boot up using your Mac OS X install DVD. Load the DVD and restart while holding down the "C" key until you see the Apple logo). Don't proceed with the installation, just open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu in your menu bar. Again select Macintosh HD but this time on the First Aid tab click "Repair Disk". This will correct the free block count. When you restart again the Used and Available space will report correctly.

I still haven't succeeded in shrinking the disk, but I am back where I started and I did not have to reinstall Mac OS.

tl;dr: don't listen to Simsaladimbamba
 
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