imac disk utility problem

Discussion in 'iMac' started by bearvsshark, May 13, 2012.

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  1. bearvsshark, May 13, 2012

    bearvsshark macrumors member

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    Oct 4, 2009
    #1
    I have just erased my imac startup disk using the lion osx dvd and disk utility. I chose to do a zero pass format and after about 3 hours, it is done. When I click on the partition that was created though, it says there is 851.7mb of used space on the partition. I am confused since I formatted it, shouldn't there be no used space? Or is that 850mb being used for something that I can't prevent?

    Here's a screenshot of my drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Image
     
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  2. theturn, May 13, 2012

    theturn macrumors newbie

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    May 12, 2012
    #2
    yes system files and file system catalogs do take up more space on a larger drive that's why it becomes more noticeable, before OS X changed it's way of calculating bytes that number would seem even larger.
     
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  3. bearvsshark, May 13, 2012

    bearvsshark thread starter macrumors member

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    #3
    Thanks for the help. One more thing, if I click on my partition in disk utility, the erase free space... button becomes available. What does it do and should I do that before installing lion? Thanks again.
     
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  4. Puevlo, May 14, 2012

    Puevlo macrumors 6502a

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    #4
    All erase free space does is create a gigantic file the same size as your free space and then deletes it. If you've zeroed out that's more than enough.
     
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  5. bearvsshark, May 14, 2012

    bearvsshark thread starter macrumors member

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    #5
    Its not going to do any harm that I did it too though right?
     
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  6. robgendreau, May 14, 2012

    robgendreau macrumors 68040

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    Jul 13, 2008
    #6
    It doesn't do any harm assuming you wanted to permanently erase everything on it :)
     
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