"Your Startup Disk is Almost Full"

[mojopixel]

Hi,

I wonder if you can help? I've suddenly been getting a pop up message that reads "Your startup disk is almost full - you need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files"

My hard disk is 320 GB & I've only used 111 GB so far so why is this message popping up & what can I do about it without deleting my precious files?

thanks for your help,

mp

 

[TonyK]

Do you have multiple partitions on that drive? How much free space is being reported? Have you ran Disk Utility to verify and/or repair the disk?

Hi,

I wonder if you can help? I've suddenly been getting a pop up message that reads "Your startup disk is almost full - you need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files"

My hard disk is 320 GB & I've only used 111 GB so far so why is this message popping up & what can I do about it without deleting my precious files?

thanks for your help,

mp

 

[mojopixel]

Do you have multiple partitions on that drive? How much free space is being reported? Have you ran Disk Utility to verify and/or repair the disk?

No, just the 1 partition & my I have approx. 111 GB of free space! How do I run Disk Utility?

thanks,

mp

 

[Mac1212]

No, just the 1 partition & my I have approx. 111 GB of free space! How do I run Disk Utility?

thanks,

mp

Well you can just go to spotlight and search for "Disk Utility" or its Application --> Utility --> Disk Utility

 

[BlueRevolution]

Well you can just go to spotlight and search for "Disk Utility" or its Application --> Utility --> Disk Utility

That's /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, but yeah. Disk Utility is the place to start.

 

[Mac1212]

That's /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, but yeah. Disk Utility is the place to start.

sorry, im from norway, so i just tried to translate the best i could, but i think he got the idea

 

[Fishrrman]

I'll take a _guess_ that one or more caches has grown out of control.

These are invisible in the finder, so aren't immediately obvious to the user.

You might try either "CacheOut X":
http://www.trilateralsystems.com/cacheoutx/

or

Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner:
http://www.northernsoftworks.com/snowleopardcachecleaner.html

Run either with your prefs set to do a thorough cleaning, then check your disk capacity again.

 

[makinao]

This happened to me recently. I couldn't find a file that suddenly occupied 80gigs of my 160gig HD. I downloaded the freeware app Grand Perspective, which gives a visual image of a HD. Sure enough, I found a suspiciously gigantic 80gig temp file. Deleted it and everything went back to normal.

 

[mojopixel]

I'll take a _guess_ that one or more caches has grown out of control.

These are invisible in the finder, so aren't immediately obvious to the user.

You might try either "CacheOut X":
http://www.trilateralsystems.com/cacheoutx/

or

Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner:
http://www.northernsoftworks.com/snowleopardcachecleaner.html

Run either with your prefs set to do a thorough cleaning, then check your disk capacity again.

thanks, I'll give that a go

 

[Makosuke]

These are invisible in the finder, so aren't immediately obvious to the user.

While the problem could well be caches, the "__GB Available" number reported by the Finder should include these as well as any other invisible file--depending on your permissions you may not see the file or have its size reported by Get Info, but free should be visible and correct for all users of the system. There can be a delay in updating available free space, though, so maybe that's what's going on here.

A restart would confirm for certain that the "Available" space reported is up-to-date. It would also remove swap files, which should never get anywhere near 100GB, but can account for a decent-sized chunk of "invisible" used space.

 

[BlueRevolution]

sorry, im from norway, so i just tried to translate the best i could, but i think he got the idea

Ja? Hvor commer du fra? (Jeg studerer norsk nå.)

Also, I didn't know that directory names changed depending on language settings. That must be awfully hard for application developers...

 

[Makosuke]

Also, I didn't know that directory names changed depending on language settings. That must be awfully hard for application developers...

Probably not; they don't actually change, the Finder (and open/save dialogues) just translates them into the primary language it's set for when it displays them.

It changes pretty much all the standard top-level and home folders--Applications, Users, System, Library, Shared, Pictures, Movies, Download, Desktop, Documents, Sites, Public, and Drop Box. They of course appear correctly (with "correctly" being defined as what the actual directory path is, which happens to be what you see in English) if you use the terminal or something else that provides unfiltered access to the filesystem.

 

[mojopixel]

I've cleaned out my caches but...

...now I have a new problem! My hard disk was 320GB before I cleaned the cache; now it is showing the hard disk to have a TOTAL capacity of 111.35GB....WTF??? & I have approx 1.27 GB of free space left!

Does anyone know how I can restore the actual capacity of my hard drive to its original 320GB?

thanks,

mp

 

[surflordca]

Have you tried to empty the trash...

 

[mojopixel]

Have you tried to empty the trash...

Yep, tried that, it doesn't change anything but thanks anyway!