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Imaginary Hard Disk space. Please advise

kdum8

kdum8

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
919
12
Tokyo, Japan
My macbook (see signature for specs) recently went into the apple store to have the logicboard replaced. It came back fixed but now the amount of space left on my HDD is reading incorrectly.

When it says I have around 7.3 GB of space left on my HDD, I actually have zero. (Verified by several means). I have repaired disk permissions to no avail. Is there anything else I can try to reset the correct count?
 
Repairing permissions isn't going to help here, but try using the Repair Disk option instead. I believe that one of its checks is the free space count.
 
if you have zero disk space left on your startup disk, you'd be getting errors left and right... how exactly is it you've verified that you have no space left?
 
spinnerlys said:
Have you tried Disk Inventory X, OmniDisk Sweeper or GrandPerspective to scan your HDD to see where all the MB/GBs went to?
Click to expand...

Tried Grand Perspective so I have a good idea what is using what. GP also reports that I have over 7 GB of space free.

Nermal said:
Repairing permissions isn't going to help here, but try using the Repair Disk option instead. I believe that one of its checks is the free space count.
Click to expand...

I tried the Repair Disk option as you suggested but it had no effect.

bluskale said:
if you have zero disk space left on your startup disk, you'd be getting errors left and right... how exactly is it you've verified that you have no space left?
Click to expand...

Good question. I first suspected something when my mac came back from the apple store with 7 GB or so more space than when I put it in. (It had around 5 GB free when I sent it for repair, so it came back reporting around 12 GB free). I thought it strange but just assumed that the genius must have done something. (All they did was replace some hardware though, nothing software related).

So anyway I tried copying a large file over that was well within the 7GB of "free" space I supposedly have, when I got a "not enough space on disk" error. I have also been getting errors left and right, exactly what you would expect if the disk is full. So I then deleted an extra GB of space to take me up to "8 GB" (in reality only 1GB free I think). So I am able to use my mac, even though there isn't much system space free. This and other indicators are a pretty good sign that the disk really is full despite saying I have over 7 GB of space free.

What gives?
 
How about booting your Mac using OSX install DVD and repair disk and permissions using Disk Utility?
 
Shot in the dark here, but perhaps that space (or at least a portion of) is the designated space for the disk cache?

7 gig sounds like an absolutely massive ammount, but I've seen windows machines that try to monopolize sizes like that. /shrug
 
PacMookBro said:
How about booting your Mac using OSX install DVD and repair disk and permissions using Disk Utility?
Click to expand...

Thanks.
I have repaired permissions the normal way using Disk Utility. How would using the OSX install disk be any different? I am not sure I follow what you want me to try.

Mindinversion said:
Shot in the dark here, but perhaps that space (or at least a portion of) is the designated space for the disk cache?

7 gig sounds like an absolutely massive ammount, but I've seen windows machines that try to monopolize sizes like that. /shrug
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.
If this were the case, how would I go about recovering this amount from the cache? With this problem even when my HD is full, it still shows 7.3 GB as free.
 
kdum8 said:
Thanks.
I have repaired permissions the normal way using Disk Utility. How would using the OSX install disk be any different? I am not sure I follow what you want me to try.
Click to expand...

Follow this procedure under "Try Disk Utility". Ignore others.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

Perform both disk and permissions repair.

Disk Utility using the OSX install disk allows your disk to be completely independent of the installed operation system. So be careful not to hit erase on the primary disk when using Disk Utility via install disk.

Hope this helps.
 
PacMookBro said:
Follow this procedure under "Try Disk Utility". Ignore others.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

Perform both disk and permissions repair.

Disk Utility using the OSX install disk allows your disk to be completely independent of the installed operation system. So be careful not to hit erase on the primary disk when using Disk Utility via install disk.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

I'll give it a go and let you know. Thanks for your help.
 
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