Storage full, when it is not even close

[underoath23]

I am helping work on a friends macbook pro. She keeps getting messages like storage is full, even when trying to save something as small as a word document. However when I go to "Get Info" on the hdd. It says that I have over 104 GB free, with a capacity of nearly 150GB total. When I try to empty trash (that has only like 4 or 5 images in it) it gives me an error and cant delete items. I believe error code 50. Any help would be awesome. I am a fairly experienced mac user and am totally thrown. I have verified/repaired the disk as well with no change.

 

[Trentolol]

I'm assuming you tried restarted?

 

[underoath23]

I have tried that yes, sorry for not mentioning that. I was going to install a couple apps to see where the memory is but I cannot download or save anything.

 

[stridemat]

Do you have access to a USB Memory Stick. Download and install the apps you need onto that and run from the Memory Stick.

As to what's actually causing the problem I have no idea.

 

[tweaks]

Create another user and see if the info is still incorrect. Then we can troubleshoot to see if it is os problem or user problem.