Major Problem with 2010 MBP

Did you empty your trash?

I had a problem with an old Powerbook years ago doing the same thing. Even thought I made space I would get the warning. Problem was even though you aren't supposed to have to defrag your hard drive for some reasons I didn't have large enough sectors and I couldn't really do anything. I used idefrag and it solved the problem.

But seriously, just in case because some people don't get it, you need to empty the trash to free up the space. I know it sounds obvious to most but not everyone understands this simple concept.

 

Try going into disk utility > highlight your startup disk > verify disk then repair disk if necessary.

You could also try verifying and repairing permissions to see if that helps.

If these steps don't help, a wipe and restore may be the best course of action.


Incidentally, how much free space do you have left on your drive?

 

You are correct... based on what you are saying you have installed you should be nowhere near 200GB... If I was you i would download a hard drive utility that graphically displays disk usage like GrandPerspective and see what is using up your space:



The big rectangle in the middle of the pic is my Win7 VM...

 

Definitely get something that shows what's where. The other "solutions" are just stabs in the dark; you need to find out what's grabbing space.

Some applications can go logging crazy, and create logs that swell out of control. An older version of TechTool Pro had this problem, for example.

Others have had issues with local TM backups, versions, temp files, etc.

You could try DaisyDisk; it's another good utility for this.

Rob

 

I'd check the size of /private/var/log/asl. It can grow to become quite huge for some reason.

To go to that folder, open Finder, Go Menu, then "Go To Folder..." and enter "/private/var/log/asl" without the quotes.