Disk is full...not!

[johnranta]

I am getting a message that my startup disk is full. It is a 297 gbyte disk. Disk utility tells me that that 296 gbytes are used, and less than 1gbyte is available. The problem is that when I check all the folders for their capacity, only about 70 gbytes of files are on the disk. I downloaded a free disk inventory program, and it tells me that the total space used by all the files on the disk runs to 70 gbytes. I ran disk utility, ran verify and repair - everything was fine, no errors. But it still tells me that my disk is full.

This machine is in a classroom, and there are multiple user accounts. I checked every user folder, and what I found matches the disk inventory above. What's filling up the missing 222 gbytes? Can there be big hidden files?

Thanks, JR

 

[GGJstudios]

For Time Machine users on Lion, Time Machine local snapshots may be consuming space. Use DiskInventory X (pre-Lion), OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive.

 

[johnranta]

Re: Disk is full...not!

Funny you should mention that, Disk Inventory X is the free program I downloaded and ran to inventory the disk. It tells me that 71.4 gbytes of files are on the disk. It does not list any "time machine" files or partitions on the startup disk.

I'll try Omnidisk to see what they tell me. JR

 

[GGJstudios]

Funny you should mention that, Disk Inventory X is the free program I downloaded and ran to inventory the disk. It tells me that 71.4 gbytes of files are on the disk. It does not list any "time machine" files or partitions on the startup disk.

Other ideas? JR

Not all of those apps show the same thing. I can't recall which one shows greater detail, but you may find what you're looking for with one of the other apps.

 

[johnranta]

Re: Disk is full...not!

I just downloaded and ran OmniDiskSweeper. It tells me the same thing - 72 gbytes of files on the disk. Disk info still says that the disk is full, 296 gbytes used. I remain baffled - where's the missing 224 gbytes? Thanks to all - jr

 

[johnranta]

Re: Disk is full...not!

So, here's what it ended up being. Even though the Users folder only showed 3 gbytes of files, there were actually 230 gbytes of files. One user (a soccer coach) had 225 gbytes of movies (from the soccer season) in an iMovie project. Why did this not show up in Disk Info? Or in any of those other disk utilities? Oh well, we figured it out, but there seems to be a hole in disk utilities...jr

 

[AlanShutko]

Most likely, the account you were using did not have permissions to view those directories.

 

[johnranta]

Re: disk is full...not

I was logged in as administrator. Maybe we don't have our administrator account seup properly. It still puzzles, because doing Command-I and running the 3rd party disk utilities gave me an accurate account of disk capacity on every other User account. But not that one. Thanks all for your feedback. JR