Mac HD full but cant find files

[ads40]

Anyone out there have a solution to full mac HD issue???
Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz Memory: 4 GB
My mac has slowed right down with "start up disc full" warning.
If I "get info" on mac HD it says capacity 249.72 Gb used 249.55 Gb free 166.7Mb
If I "get info" on all users I cannot find more than 80Gb used.
I have run Omni Disc sweeper and Disk inventory X and both show only 80Gb of files
I have used terminal to show all hidden files and run disc sweeper and disk inventory again with the same result
I have run disc utility > verify disc permissions, repair disc permissions, and verify disc. I also ran repair disc from the snow leopard startup disc.
I cant find any files to delete, and cant find where the other 170Gb is being used.
Any ideas???

 

[maflynn]

check out /var/vm folder, that's where your swap files exist. Also look at your log files, as they may have grown inordinately large. Its odd that omnidisksweeper did not find the space, I use that all the time, and its yet to fail me on showing my usage.

 

[ads40]

thanks for your suggestion
/var/vm is only 4Gb and log files through console not much either

 

[spinnerlys]

I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but from your OP I gather you only scanned the Macintosh HD / Users folder with its sub-folders.

Have you used Disk Inventory X or OmniDiskSweeper with the whole volume (Macintosh HD ) yet? There might be many supporting files stored away in Macintosh HD / Library / Application Support or somewhere else.

 

[ads40]

Yes I scanned Mac HD with both utilities and only found 80Gb of files. I also manually checked by "get info" on all users.

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes I scanned Mac HD with both utilities and only found 80Gb of files. I also manually checked by "get info" on all users.

And have you checked the Macintosh HD / Library folder too, as you seem to be a bit focused on the Users folder?

 

[mac2x]

Use Onyx to delete caches and stuff. If you have never done this, you may be appalled at how large some of them (particularly browser caches) have become.

 

[ads40]

Only focused on the user folder cos thats where 60 of the 80Gb is. I have manually checked all the folders in Mac HD (library is only 5Gb) and also run OmniDisc Sweeper and disk inventory on Mac HD. Keeps adding up to 80Gb only.
No idea where the 170Gb is hiding!!!!
I figure it is some kind of error but cant work out how to get around it. Even if I wipe the HD and restore from my time capsule it will restore back to the same size with the same issue

 

[ads40]

Just ran onyx - now a massive 580Mb of space!
Still 249 Gb used despite only 80Gb showing up on Disc inventory and Omni Disc sweeper.
Any other ideas???

 

[ads40]

Screen shot of Mac HD via disc inventory attached.
Still no sign of the other 170Gb???

 

[ads40]

Screen shot of Mac HD "get info"

 

[maflynn]

Is there any files at the root directory, in the terminal, do a
cd /
ls -al

and see if there's any large files
Additionally if you type du -d 1 -g you'll get a see the top level directories and their associated sizes (in gigabytes)

adjusting the -d 1 with another number will display directory sizes deeper into the directory tree, not just the top level.

You can also redirect the output to a text file like this
du -d 1 -g > /dir.txt

One note, you'll want to run the du command at the root level so that it scans your entire volume

 

[ads40]

Thats testing my mac abilities a little!
Largest file at the root directory is 18661932. I presume thats kb.
du command came up with a total of 63Gb only with no large files although not sure thats at the root level. How do I do that??

 

[spinnerlys]

Thats testing my mac abilities a little!
Largest file at the root directory is 18661932. I presume thats kb.
du command came up with a total of 63Gb only with no large files although not sure thats at the root level. How do I do that??

That file is the mach_kernel file and it is 18.7MB in size, thus the file sizes in Terminal are reported in bytes.

 

[maflynn]

So if I understand the problem correctly then.

It seems all utilities, like omnidisksweeper, terminal commands and such report a accurate usage details but the get info for the drive fails too.

For giggles, download pathfinder, it has

The purpose is to see if a finder replacement tool reports the correct amount.

Personally, seeing this type of issue, I'd make sure I have a backup of my data and then reformat the drive and slowly and selectively reinstall your apps/data.

Another thing you can try is to create a new administrator account and see if the results are same, maybe your account is corrupted, though I think in this case its highly unlikely. Given the ease and creating a new user account, its probably worth a shot

 

[Hal Itosis]

Is there any files at the root directory, in the terminal, do a
cd /
ls -al

and see if there's any large files
Additionally if you type du -d 1 -g you'll get a see the top level directories and their associated sizes (in gigabytes)

adjusting the -d 1 with another number will display directory sizes deeper into the directory tree, not just the top level.

You can also redirect the output to a text file like this
du -d 1 -g > /dir.txt

One note, you'll want to run the du command at the root level so that it scans your entire volume

That's definitely the right idea, but du needs to be run with sudo to measure everything. That's where some of the GUI utilities fall short too. If they don't run with root privileges, they can't measure spotlight indexes, (other users') trash/cache/temps... and many other areas where large files can hide in secure folders.

Here are a few terminal commands that will show us what we need to see.

sudo du -xhd1 /

diskutil info /

df -h

[the other two commands there don't need sudo.]

If nothing worthwhile shows up using those, then we should measure the /Volumes folder:

sudo du -hd1 /Volumes

[disconnect all external drives and unmount all networked shares before running that one.]

 

[ads40]

Thanks - tried all your suggestions but still cant fix the problem.
To summarise - my macbook is behaving like the HD is full - slow, frequent alerts that the startup disc is full, colour wheel coming up all the time..
Get info on Mac HD confirms 249Gb of 250 GB HD used
All utilities find only 80Gb on the HD and there should be nowhere near 249Gb used. Nothing seems to be able to find the missing 170Gb!!
I have run the suggested terminal commands - results below.
I have also run pathfinder as suggested - see attached.
Looks like I may have to erase the hard drive and start again, which will be a real pain!!!!

Disk util info

Total Size: 249.7 GB (249715376128 Bytes) (exactly 487725344 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space: 407.1 MB (407089152 Bytes) (exactly 795096 512-Byte-Blocks)

Df-h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 233Gi 232Gi 388Mi 100% /
devfs 108Ki 108Ki 0Bi 100% /dev
map -hosts 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /net
map auto_home 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /home

sudo du –xhdl /

36K /.fseventsd
284M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol

sudo du –hdl /Volumes

4.0K /Volumes

 

[Hal Itosis]

Thanks - tried all your suggestions but still cant fix the problem.

Some of the commands you ran were entered incorrectly (by you). Looks like you didn't use copy/paste... but rather "read/type" (a potentially dangerous practice).

Disk util info

Total Size:         249.7 GB (249715376128 Bytes) (exactly 487725344 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space:  407.1 MB (407089152 Bytes) (exactly 795096 512-Byte-Blocks)

Df-h

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   233Gi  232Gi  388Mi   100%    /
devfs          108Ki  108Ki    0Bi   100%    /dev
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /net
map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /home

So far, so good. [except, again: you didn't use copy/paste when posting *back* here... so the commands you typed in that message there are actually wrong (even though apparently what terminal was given was correct).]

sudo du –xhdl /

36K	/.fseventsd
284M	/.Spotlight-V100
  0B	/.Trashes
  0B	/.vol

sudo du –hdl /Volumes

4.0K	/Volumes

Fail. That's supposed to be the number 1, not the letter l.

This method will work... when done correctly.


EDIT: also, be sure to let those du's finish before posting their results. It takes time to measure every single file.

For example...

$ [COLOR="Blue"]time sudo du -xhd1 /[/COLOR]
144K	/.fseventsd
455M	/.Spotlight-V100
  0B	/.TemporaryItems
  0B	/.Trashes
  0B	/.vol
4.1G	/Applications
3.9M	/bin
  0B	/cores
4.5K	/dev
1.0K	/home
5.1G	/Library
1.0K	/net
  0B	/Network
4.9G	/private
2.6M	/sbin
2.3G	/System
1.6M	/test-share
5.8G	/Users
568M	/usr
4.0K	/Volumes
 23G	/

real	[B]1m34.767s[/B]
user	0m1.042s
sys	0m17.185s
$

That took one minute and thirty five seconds on my Core i7 MBP.
So... just wait until the bash prompt $ returns before proceeding.

 

[ads40]

Actually I did copy and paste your commands into terminal, and copy pasted the responses back.
The only things I free typed were in the reply post - I typed the commands (not entirely accurately as it was from memory) above each pasted response in my reply post so you would know which result was for which command.
Still didnt find the files though.....

 

[peoplevoice]

Empty trash

Have you "Empty trash"?

Too see all files in HD have you try in terminal "ls -alR /" ?

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you "Empty trash"?

It seems that way:

....
sudo du –xhdl /

36K /.fseventsd
284M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol

sudo du –hdl /Volumes

4.0K /Volumes

Too see all files in HD have you try in terminal "ls -alR /" ?

And if I don't have an HD TV?

Anyway, that command will have to run some minutes I guess as it lists every file. But as there are surely more than 50,000 files on that Mac, how to properly sort through it?

 

[maflynn]

As I said in my earlier thread, why not make sure you have a recent backup, and reformat the drive. Selectively reinstall your apps/data being sure to pay attention to disk usage.

Ultimately this may be your only option as other avenues have been tried and were not successful.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Actually I did copy and paste your commands into terminal, and copy pasted the responses back.
The only things I free typed were in the reply post - I typed the commands (not entirely accurately as it was from memory) above each pasted response in my reply post so you would know which result was for which command.
Still didnt find the files though.....

Well, you might have to put some sincere effort into it first.
Look... according to what you posted, the command:

sudo du -xhd1 /

...found no /Applications folder at all, no /Library folder at all, no /Users folder at all, no /private folder at all, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

That's impossible.

So, either you didn't wait for that command to finish, or you didn't copy/paste the full output back here for us to see.

GIGO.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Too see all files in HD have you try in terminal "ls -alR /" ?

Have you tried that?

Again: without sudo that ls command would miss a lot of what exists (and simply replace those inaccessible areas with "Permission denied" messages).

Pluswhich —even if run properly —that particular recursive listing would possibly produce half a million lines of output. Not very practical. Much better to use du one level deep... and then walk down the directory tree a dozen times or so.

 

[peoplevoice]

Empty trash continuation

I meant for HD (Hard Disk).

I forgot to mention that "Mail" and "iPhoto" have their own "Trash".

I agree that the output of ls -alR is huge.

You can use "find / -size +nM" to look for files with sizes greater than n Megabytes for example.

Maybe is time to get a larger hard disk.