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Messed with my "private" (hidden) folder in attempt to save HD space

J

johnpc

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 15, 2010
43
0
I ran an application called Disk Utility X which showed me that I had a folder called private that took up 9.9 GB of my hard drive. I knew I had not put it there, and it wasn't in a libraries folder or anything, so I kinda assumed it wasa virus and deleted it. Then my whole computer stopped working, but I was able to boot in single user mode and return the files from my trash back to where they belong. The computer started working again.

However, I ran disk utility x again, and noticed that the private folder now takes up 14.3 GB. The computer works again, but somehow at the cost of 5GB storage space.

Any ideas why this happened?
 
If you're not certain what something is, it's not wise to delete it. There are no viruses in the wild that run on current Mac OS X, so don't assume that something is malware.

Mac Virus/Malware Info
 
Yes thankyou and I have clearly learned that lesson..... the hard way.

but do you have any knowledge of why the extra gigabytage is being taken up? is this normal?
 
johnpc said:
Yes thankyou and I have clearly learned that lesson..... the hard way.

but do you have any knowledge of why the extra gigabytage is being taken up? is this normal?
Click to expand...

It's the penalty the OS assesses when someone messes about with the system without knowing what they're doing. seriously.



OK - not seriously. Google OS X and Private Folder, and something will pop up probably.

In my experience, people who "optimize" their systems, and add "enhancers" and "system extenders" are the ones who have problems. I used to muck about 'under the hood'. Added all of these slick optimizers, and OS extenders. Never really bothered me that the system was not entirely stable since I had come from a not entirely stable OS to begin with.

Then I messed it up badly enough I had to reinstall the OS. I also made the decision to leave behind all of those 'haxies'. Haven't had a single kernal panic yet. In at least 2 years. When OS X is left to manage itself, it is seriously stable.

And when I read (and often help out) people who are having issues - there is almost always an "optimizer" or an "OS extender" (i.e. haxies) on the system.

To be fair - I have used Monolingual on occasion - but that is the only one. It will save you a fair bit of HD space, but don't get fancy with it. Let it do it's work with the defaults and it will work fine.
 
maflynn said:
Definitely, you deleted OS specific objects and now that OS is not functioning.

Back up your home folder, and reinstall OSX.
Click to expand...

should save a link for this

my /private folder is 9.4gb base 2

quit trying to slim your system down, buy a larger hard drive.
 
mulo said:
should save a link for this

my /private folder is 9.4gb base 2

quit trying to slim your system down, buy a larger hard drive.
Click to expand...

/private/var/vm holds your swap files, and your sleepimage file. That will account for a lot of the allocation.
 
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