"Not enough free disk space"- new Crucial M4

[bozz2006]

After getting up and running with my new Crucial 256GB M4, I get this message when trying to download software updates (the new OSX 10.7.4 and Safari 5.1.7) through Apple's website. Goes fine through software update. Any ideas? I have over 94GB of free space.

 

[azentropy]

After getting up and running with my new Crucial 256GB M4, I get this message when trying to download software updates (the new OSX 10.7.4 and Safari 5.1.7) through Apple's website. Goes fine through software update. Any ideas? I have over 94GB of free space.

Run Disk Utility and check your permissions. Possible that your "download" folder doesn't have the correct privs.

 

[GGJstudios]

If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion storage tab is about, this may help explain:

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating my space​

For space issues not explained by the above, there are a few things you can try, some of which may or may not apply:

• Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.
• For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion, space may being consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.
  OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
• Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
  
  
• Use OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report, Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.
• Check your drive with Disk Utility: Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
• Try re-indexing your drive: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

Here are a few resolutions found by others with the same question:

• Encrypted drive
• Time Machine backup files and needed disk repair
• App filling log file
• App or file was 89GB
• Drive needed to be re-indexed
• Time Machine backup file
• Large app cache file
• Garageband files and video podcasts
• Oversized email being duplicated
• Another email issue

 

[bozz2006]

Possible that your "download" folder doesn't have the correct privs.

Ah, I believe that's the problem. In Finder I clicked on Downloads, and got the message that I couldn't open it because I don't have permission to see its contents.

However, the problem wasn't solved by a permissions repair or by clicking "get info" on the downloads folder, then changing "sharing and permissions" to read & write for both "system" and "everyone".

Any other ideas?

edit: I got it sorted. I added my username to the list and now am able to access the downloads folder. Thanks for the tip, azentropy.

 

[Mal]

Ah, I believe that's the problem. In Finder I clicked on Downloads, and got the message that I couldn't open it because I don't have permission to see its contents.

You can fix that by manually changing the permissions, but since there might well be other permissions errors in your home folder as well, I recommend you reset them. Since you're in Lion, follow these steps:

Restart holding the Option key and choose the Recovery Partition (or hold Command-R at startup).
From the Utilities menu at the top of the screen, choose Terminal.
Type in "resetpassword" without the quotes and hit enter.
Choose your drive, then your user account, and then click the button at the bottom to Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACL's.

This will resolve those issues (where Repairing Permissions will not, because it does not touch the home folder, unless applications have installed files there).

jW

 

[bozz2006]

Thanks. I restarted holding command R. And now it is doing an Internet recovery. Is that normal?

I don't understand why it went straight to Internet recovery.

 

[Mal]

Cmd-R goes to the Internet Recovery mode if you don't have a Recovery Partition (or by default on some models, I think), but unless you proceed through the steps, it doesn't actually do anything else. It works just like the Recovery Partition, except it's accessing it all over the internet. The rest of my steps should still work.

jW

 

[bozz2006]

Yep, it still seemed to work. I guess I'm just surprised that i apparently don't have a recovery partition. I thought that was automatic.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yep, it still seemed to work. I guess I'm just surprised that i apparently don't have a recovery partition. I thought that was automatic.

What did you use to clone to your new drive? The clone likely did not make a recovery partition. You can just reinstall Lion and that will make a recovery partition.

 

[bozz2006]

I didn't clone. I restored from a TM backup. ???

 

[Weaselboy]

I didn't clone. I restored from a TM backup. ???

That's it. That will not create a Lion recovery partition. Just reinstall Lion and it will make one.

 

[bozz2006]

Thanks. Is there any way to do that without having to do Internet recovery?

 

[Mal]

If you have the installer downloaded to your drive already, then you can just run it, or you can grab it from the Mac App Store (hold Option while clicking on the Purchased section in order for it to be available for redownload).

jW

 

[bozz2006]

Downloaded Lion install from the app store. Reinstalled. Restarted computer and held option. Sure enough, there is a recovery partition. Thanks fellas.