Missing space

[qw3rty]

i'm using a macbook with 10.5.8 installed. WhatSize shows that i only used 49.5GB on macintosh hd but on the side it says i used 96GB. help D:

 

[res1233]

Did you do anything involving repartitioning such as Boot Camp that failed?

 

[qw3rty]

i've tried partitioning but an error came up that said that some files cannot be moved. no failed repartitions

 

[res1233]

Try repairing the disk in disk utility by booting from an installation DVD. If the problem is what I think it is, that should fix it.

 

[qw3rty]

i did that but nothing changed

 

[kittyggirl]

Good luck.

 

[fivedots]

Never used WhatSize but that chart gives me a headache. I can't make heads or tails of it. I can tell you that the numbers on it add up to roughly 90GB, unless I'm reading it wrong.

Glitch, maybe? What does Finder tell you? It's likely to be right.

 

[r0k]

Did you empty trash? If you have a lot of stuff in the trash, it might show up as free space in one list and as used space in another list. Empty trash and see if the numbers start to agree.

 

[qw3rty]

Trash is empty, no change.

 

[r0k]

I'm not sure why you are seeing a difference now that you've confirmed the trash is empty. What does finder say you have free? Disk utility? I would believe the OS before I believe 3rd party shareware.

I downloaded the app you use to give it a try. The web site mentioned something about a new version for Lion. Still, it will only do 20 gig without payment. I finally found a small folder with only 26 gig of stuff and ran it to see what it looked like. I sort of like the display your app gives but I don't want to cough up 12 bucks right now. Instead I use freeware grand perspective to do much the same thing.

Attached is my screen shot from grand perspective. When I hover over the bigger rectangles, it tells me the name of the file that is using so much space.

 

[qw3rty]

I used GrandPerspective and and this is what i saw. Any idea what miscellaneous used space is??? That seems to be the missing space on my HD.

 

[r0k]

I see you are using logical size measure. Change to physical and re-scan. If that doesn't work...

I found some help over at sourceforge.

"Miscellaneous used space: All used space that is not accounted for by the size of the scanned files. This includes the following:

* Files that were not scanned, either because the scanned folder was not at the root of the volume, or the user did not have permissions to access all subfolders.

* Files that are excluded by the filter (if any).

* Disk space that is not accounted for because the Logical file size measure is used, which underestimates the space that files actually take up.

* Low-level file system data, needed to store amongst others the folder hierarchy."



To reduce the size of the miscellaneous used space, you can do the following:

1) Run GrandPerspective as "root" so you have permission to scan all files (see [1])

2) Use the Physical file size measure

3) Scan in the entire HD, without using a filter

I don't particularly like the idea of running an application as root, but it turns out the "misc used space" is made up of stuff you don't have permission to see. Be sure to turn off file deletion in preferences so you aren't running grand perspective as root and accidentally delete a bunch of stuff. But wait. Before you go run it as root, are you running as an an admin account? I don't see nearly as much misc used space as you and I never run gp as root but I am logged in as an admin user.

 

[qw3rty]

using admin
how do I use root?
Scanned with admin (btw the free space seems to be diminishing for no apparent reason a few hours ago it was 54.91 now it is 54.41):