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Disk Utility

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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,118
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I was reading about deleting free space or something or other to erase old files etc.. and someone said using disk utility with secure wipes if you have sensitive stuff. How about my banking and paying people online etc., Can someone explain this and why when I go there there is the Macintosh HD, and the 320GB, what's what there and if you do want to clean up old files that have been 'deleted' but haven't, isn't there an easier way to do this than start messing around here?

And, should a newbie be aware in any way of Terminal and how to use it? It's not something anyone tells you much about, It's one of those either know or you don't?
 
Peter Franks said:
I was reading about deleting free space or something or other to erase old files etc.. and someone said using disk utility with secure wipes if you have sensitive stuff. How about my banking and paying people online etc., Can someone explain this and why when I go there there is the Macintosh HD, and the 320GB, what's what there and if you do want to clean up old files that have been 'deleted' but haven't, isn't there an easier way to do this than start messing around here?

And, should a newbie be aware in any way of Terminal and how to use it? It's not something anyone tells you much about, It's one of those either know or you don't?
Click to expand...

For cleaning up, I personally like CleanMyMac.
Why are you worried about it in the first place? Are you low on disk space?
If you Mac isn't giving you any problems, why are you even concerned about it. You are more likely to give yourself problems digging around and deleting stuff that you have no idea what it is.

As for the terminal, if you don't know anything about it...STAY AWAY. It can be a dangerous place!!! If you remove something critical in the terminal, you can't recover it and you'll be screwed.
 
If you want to delete specific files securely drag them to the trash and in finder's menu bar menu click 'Secure Empty Trash'. If you've deleted files in the past and then continued writing new stuff to your hard drive then it's quite possible that they have already been overwritten.
 
Disk Utility shows you the physical hard drive (320 GB) and all the volumes residing on that drive (Macintish HD). In most cases people only have one volume, but if you had a second you would see it listed under the 320 GB aswell.
 
When you delete a file you actually only remove the file address (i.e., location information) from your file directory. This process frees up that hard drive location for future use. The file, however, "still exists" on your hard drive. Eventually the "deleted" file will be overwritten as you write new files to your hard drive.

RE: erasing free space that may contain traces of deleted files.
Peter Franks said:
Can someone explain this and why when I go there there is the Macintosh HD, and the 320GB, what's what there and if you do want to clean up old files that have been 'deleted' but haven't
Click to expand...

To obliterate deleted file remnants from freed up spaces on your hard drive:
Launch disk utility>In the left hand column click on Mac HD (or whatever your hard drive is named)>Click the Erase button>Click the Erase free space button.

The free space on your hard drive will be overwritten with a random set of data (1's and 0's) several times. This process writes over any file remnants, obliterating them. Overwriting free space on your hard drive can take a long time (hours to days).

Peter Franks said:
C, should a newbie be aware in any way of Terminal and how to use it? It's not something anyone tells you much about, It's one of those either know or you don't?
Click to expand...
Most users do not need to know how to use the terminal or access the any of the unix underpinnings (available via terminal).
 
shwc said:
When you delete a file you actually only remove the file address (i.e., location information) from your file directory. This process frees up that hard drive location for future use. The file, however, "still exists" on your hard drive. Eventually the "deleted" file will be overwritten as you write new files to your hard drive.



Most users do not need to know how to use the terminal or access the any of the unix underpinnings (available via terminal).
Click to expand...

The deleted file is inaccessible unless recovery software is used, you might want to wipe the free disk space if you are selling a computer on but you don't need to do it as a maintenance or security task. As quoted, the deleted file will eventually be overwritten.


It can be useful to have a little knowledge of the terminal, even if it is just to understand how things work beneath the user interface.
If you want to investigate the terminal further and have a spare pc try installing a linux variant on it and use it for practice, don't experiment on your mac.
As an example, I accidentally removed an entire desktop on a linux install with a slip of the finger whilst using the terminal :eek:
Experimenting with terminal commands on your mac is not recommended.
 
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Thanks guys. Why do I see two in that list. The one that says 320 and the other one that says Macintosh. I thought it's one and the same?
Also why do a lot of desktops keep that Macintosh drive icon short cut on there from what I've seen from users pics?
 
Peter Franks said:
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Thanks guys. Why do I see two in that list. The one that says 320 and the other one that says Macintosh. I thought it's one and the same?
Also why do a lot of desktops keep that Macintosh drive icon short cut on there from what I've seen from users pics?
Click to expand...

One is the actual, physical HDD, the other (slightly indented) is the the partition called Macintosh HD.

And when one has the Macintosh HD icon on the Desktop, it just means one likes to access it via these means. I have done so myself, but lately removed it, due to my personal preference and having a lot of external HDDs with a lot more partitions on them.
 
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Right. So there's nothing actually on that one until I partition it for some reason? Would I? Why?
 
Peter Franks said:
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Right. So there's nothing actually on that one until I partition it for some reason? Would I? Why?
Click to expand...

I think you may have misunderstood what simsaladimbamba is saying.

The 320gb is the actual physical disk inside your mac, if you highlight it at top left and then look at the bottom of the disk utility window you will see information regarding the physical drive, e.g, maker, capacity etc.

If you highlight macintosh HD and look at the bottom of the disk utility window you will see information regarding the partition on the physical drive, the partition being the operating system that you have installed.

If you need to make another partition on your disk you will have a reason for doing so that makes it necessary to use partitioning, other than such a reason coming up you'll be fine as you are.
 
GGJstudios said:
One app that I would not recommend, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere, is CleanMyMac. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much

You don't need "cleaner" apps to keep your Mac running well, and many of them do more harm than good.
Click to expand...

I've noticed a couple myself. I guess the app works a little too good. I used to use Onyx, and that seemed to be alright. It would run scripts already on the computer as far as I know, repair permissions, empty cache, and other things.
 
There's so many apps that claim to clean up but you guys know how to do what they do with the basics of the OS anyway...
 
Rowf said:
I think you may have misunderstood what simsaladimbamba is saying.

The 320gb is the actual physical disk inside your mac, if you highlight it at top left and then look at the bottom of the disk utility window you will see information regarding the physical drive, e.g, maker, capacity etc.

If you highlight macintosh HD and look at the bottom of the disk utility window you will see information regarding the partition on the physical drive, the partition being the operating system that you have installed.

If you need to make another partition on your disk you will have a reason for doing so that makes it necessary to use partitioning, other than such a reason coming up you'll be fine as you are.
Click to expand...

So the Macintosh HD just has the OS on it, and everything else is on the 320
 
Peter Franks said:
So the Macintosh HD just has the OS on it, and everything else is on the 320
Click to expand...

"Macintosh HD" is the name of the 320GB partition your Mac OS X resides on and all your data. As the actual, physical HDD is 320GB in size, the "Macintosh HD" partition fills the entire HDD.
I presume you used a Windows PC before, and if you remember something from it, there was a drive called "C:", which presumably was as big as the HDD found in that PC. "C:" holds the entire OS and all your data, unless you partitioned it and created another partition ("D:" perhaps) to hold your data.

As you can see in Finder, "Macintosh HD" holds several folders, one is called "Applications", which hods all your applications. One is called "System", which stores system files, files the OS needs. One is called "Library", again, a folder the system and the applications need. Then there is the "Users" folder, which has at least one sub folder, which has the shortname of your user, where all your user data resides in, like the "Desktop" and all the other folders you find when clicking on the Home Folder icon (the little house icon in the Sidebar).


PS: There is no need for any cleaning software, especially if you don't know what you are doing, and sadly, it seems that way (no offence).
 
Peter Franks said:
So the Macintosh HD just has the OS on it, and everything else is on the 320
Click to expand...

The 320 is your actual disc, everything else is just a partition on this disc

Macintosh HD is the partition that holds everything

Cant remember if you said you recently converted from windows

think of the 320 as a new disc you put into a windows machine, before you can use it you would need to format or partition it, after format you would end up with a C drive where you install everything

so

on the mac you have

320 etc
Macintosh HD

on windows side it could be

320 etc
c:
 
simsaladimbamba said:
"Macintosh HD" is the name of the 320GB partition your Mac OS X resides on and all your data. As the actual, physical HDD is 320GB in size, the "Macintosh HD" partition fills the entire HDD.
I presume you used a Windows PC before, and if you remember something from it, there was a drive called "C:", which presumably was as big as the HDD found in that PC. "C:" holds the entire OS and all your data, unless you partitioned it and created another partition ("D:" perhaps) to hold your data.

As you can see in Finder, "Macintosh HD" holds several folders, one is called "Applications", which hods all your applications. One is called "System", which stores system files, files the OS needs. One is called "Library", again, a folder the system and the applications need. Then there is the "Users" folder, which has at least one sub folder, which has the shortname of your user, where all your user data resides in, like the "Desktop" and all the other folders you find when clicking on the Home Folder icon (the little house icon in the Sidebar).


PS: There is no need for any cleaning software, especially if you don't know what you are doing, and sadly, it seems that way (no offence).
Click to expand...

None taken, :rolleyes:,
No, I just had the C Drive... unless I plugged anything else in, so expected to see the Macintosh, and the 320 inside that if you know what i mean... as one.

paulsalter said:
The 320 is your actual disc, everything else is just a partition on this disc

Macintosh HD is the partition that holds everything

Cant remember if you said you recently converted from windows

think of the 320 as a new disc you put into a windows machine, before you can use it you would need to format or partition it, after format you would end up with a C drive where you install everything

so

on the mac you have

320 etc
Macintosh HD

on windows side it could be

320 etc
c:
Click to expand...

Thank you, I only ever had the C Drive, because I never partitioned.. but I get what you're saying. And the iDisk, that says I have to set up Mobile Me to view, do I need to do that, or something else us mortals don't need to know?
 
Last edited:
Peter Franks said:
None taken, :rolleyes:,
No, I just had the C Drive... unless I plugged anything else in, so expected to see the Macintosh, and the 320 inside that if you know what i mean... as one.



Thank you, I only ever had the C Drive, because I never partitioned.. but I get what you're saying. And the iDisk, that says I have to set up Mobile Me to view, do I need to do that, or something else us mortals don't need to know?
Click to expand...

idisk is a file hosting service that works with MobileMe, it allows a user to store files etc and access them from other apple devices.

It's about to be replaced by icloud: http://www.apple.com/icloud/
and is no longer taking subscribers.

I know this because I read it in a magazine this morning and checked out the icloud website this afternoon.
I too am an ordinary mortal :)

You can happily leave iDisk alone for the time being.
 
Rowf said:
You can happily leave iDisk alone for the time being.
Click to expand...

for ever if you are not a current MM subscriber

its been killed off totally :( , works for current members only until turned off for good

iCloud has a similar version but apps written to use it will store docs automatically on it, not 100% sure if you can just write to it like a folder, doesn't look like it

iDisk just gives you an online folder, you put on it whatever you want
 
Oh right, yeh. I set up Mobile Me for 'find my iphone' but that's it, I don't think that counts as a proper paid account, I have no email with them... just had to do it to set up that app that will be turned off the minute someone nicks the phone anyway!

icloud!! They do this just to annoy me! I suppose storing stuff out there in the www isn't 100% safe either for sensitive business info.

To mortals...
 
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