|
Replies
:
27
-
Pages
:
2
[
1
2
|
Next
]
-
Last Post
:
Nov 26, 2007 9:55 PM
by: King of Spades
|
|
|
Posts:
23
From:
USA
Registered:
Oct 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 8:14 AM
|
|
|
I have a fairly new 500GB iMAC with only about 90GB space used on the HD (about 380GB free space available). I upgraded to Leopard on Friday & set up Time Machine. Things seemed to work well until about day 2 when the error message came up telling me that the backup volume is too big for the external drive. It was telling me the backup was 450GB when it should be around 90GB! I looked at my hard drive & noticed that my 380GB of space has dwindled to 20GB! I have been through all folders (including hidden folders) & the total used space on my HD should be 90GB. The TM initial backup is also 90GB. So, why is TM detecting a backup of 450GB, & most importantly, what is taking up the 450GB? I cannot find anything on my HD that can account for more than 90GB! I spent 1hr on the phone to an Apple specialist today & he couldn't figure it out. He will escalate to an engineer. He suggested that I backup my valuable files, erase my HD & start over again. From what I've read, this may not work. Please can someone advise me what to do, & how I can get back the space on my hard drive. Thank you so much!
iMAC
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
21
From:
Derby, England
Registered:
Mar 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 10:21 AM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
Gordo9,
I know you have said you checked your folders... I presume your 'Previous Systems' folder is empty, and that you haven't got a previous (Tiger) backup on your external drive?
I tried using TM and found it had backed up the Leopard data in addition to, my previous Tiger HDD backup... hence a smaller than expected external drive capacity. I should have erased the HDD I suppose, before backing up Leopard.
As there's been quite a few TM problems, I've erased the Lacie Quadra & now back up with Super Duper, pending the fix.
Good Luck
Intel Imac
Mac OS X (10.4.9)
|
|
Posts:
23
From:
USA
Registered:
Oct 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 10:54 AM
in response to: golly
|
|
|
my problem is loss of space on my iMAC HD not the external drive. It has a 465GB capacity with about 90GB in use, so there should be around 380GB free space, when it is telling me there is 20GB of space available. I'm trying to figure out where the "missing" 360GB is. Maybe I have to erase my HD & start again...????
iMAC
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
26
From:
Nashville, TN
Registered:
Aug 18, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 11:20 AM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
Could you try opening up terminal and running the following command (without quotes):
"diskutil list"
and copy and paste the results. It should list your internal hard drive partition configuration and size and then your external hard drive partition configuration and size.
Macbook Pro
Mac OS X (10.4.10)
|
|
Posts:
26
From:
Nashville, TN
Registered:
Aug 18, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 2:18 PM
in response to: bjtitus
|
|
|
Also, what is the size of your External drive? I understand the initial backup was 90GB and your Internal drive is 500GB (which leaves about 400GB of space). How big is your external drive? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you have said.
Macbook Pro
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
602
Registered:
Dec 26, 2005
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 2:44 PM
in response to: bjtitus
|
|
|
Actually, go empty your trash just to be sure. If you at one time had files on the external and deleted them they actually stay there until the trash is emptied.
If that is not the case make sure your drive is formatted for Mac and not FAT32 or something.
good luck,
glenn
MBP
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
13
Registered:
May 7, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Oct 31, 2007 7:11 PM
in response to: cybercrypt13
|
|
|
My hard drive had 191 GB of free space yesterday. I went to class all day today and when I came back and turned on my iMac, SURPRISE, I had 2 MB. I am absolutely IRATE. I called the Apple store, nobody had any answers. They gave me the number for Apple Care and they close at 6pm. What is that? I am about to throw this piece of **** in the garbage. There is no reason my HD space should disappear. I have a backup on my hard drive through Time Machine, but it seems impossible to restore the whole system back to yesterday. HELPPPPPPPPPP Im going to kill myself.
iMac 20" 2.16GHz 2GB Ram, MacBook 2.0 GHz 1GB Ram, 80 GB iPod
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
23
From:
USA
Registered:
Oct 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 8:48 AM
in response to: Formy57
|
|
|
I too have spent several hours on the phone with AppleCare, who cannot figure it out. I have spoken to 2 different product specialists & now my case has been escalated to the engineer. I guess the hard drive has been corrupted & suspect I will be told to erase my hard drive, reinstall leopard, check available space is ok, & then restore my computer through backup. Maybe it would be better to wait until Time Machine is fixed before unleashing it on my computer again!
Any help would be appreciated!
iMAC
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
555
From:
Toronto, ON, Canada
Registered:
Aug 7, 2006
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 10:44 AM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
Try downloading a trial copy of OmniDisksweeper.
It will show you where and what is using all of the diskspace.
It is very helpful to assist in locating large folders and files to help you clean up your drive. Once you know what is taking up all the space - may you can figure out why.
Macbook Pro 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 500GB MyBook USB Drive
Mac OS X (10.5)
Video iPod 30GB; Mac-Mini I2CD, 2GB RAM
|
|
Posts:
23
From:
USA
Registered:
Oct 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 7:08 PM
in response to: lethal
|
|
|
Thanks for the advice.
I used Omnidisksweeper & it gave me a total used 90GB! So, the only explanation is that my Hard Drive is somehow corrupted or damaged. Should I erase & reload Leopard? Then at least I will see how much space is available on the HD. Then if there's still a problem, it time to get a replacement iMAC from Apple (still under guarantee!)
iMAC
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
602
Registered:
Dec 26, 2005
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 8:10 PM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
I'd say not. I would first go empty your trash can and make sure everything is cleared up. I would seriously doubt that the TM messed up your internal drive. If you're talking about your external has 90GB on it, wouldn't that be about right? How big is your internal drive and how much free space do you have there.
By the way, I've been watching my TM simply by watching the size of my external drive's free space all day. Everything appears to be normal and it has barely grown in size despite it running all day.
Good luck,
glenn
MBP
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
23
From:
USA
Registered:
Oct 29, 2007
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 8:26 PM
in response to: cybercrypt13
|
|
|
My internal drive is 500GB, I am using 90GB so should be around 400GB free space. I've only got 15GB free space showing in Finder!
iMAC
Mac OS X (10.5)
|
|
Posts:
5,765
From:
Southern Calif
Registered:
Oct 12, 2001
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 11:31 PM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
Take a look at the article I wrote on disappearing drive space:
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/TigerMisc.html
My first guess would be to check /Volumes for a failed backup. More details are in the article, along with a tedious, but so far always successful method of using Terminal to find things no other method can locate.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder
2x2.66 Dual Core MacPro; iBookG4; iPod
Mac OS X (10.4.10)
Cinema Display, Wacom Tablet
|
|
Posts:
56
Registered:
Dec 30, 2003
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 1, 2007 11:55 PM
in response to: Francine Schwie...
|
|
|
Please see my post at 9:24 here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5724862�
I found the problem to be Spotlight. It had eaten/disappeared 60GB, that's Gigabytes! in the course of about two hours. It appeared to be copying the contents of the disk to the /.Spotlight-V100 hidden root directory. I could not see it with WhatSize, Disk Inventory, jDiskReport, or any other disk analysis tools. After wresting with mdutils and privacy in spotlight, I could recover the space. However, each time I tried to re-index, I got the same multi GB and rising /.Spotlight-V100 directory with 16 hour time projections on the index. I also looked through my CONSOLE log view and found many errors from MDS and something like MDSTracker... Can't remember.
All the best,
fellow
|
|
Posts:
4,007
Registered:
Sep 4, 2003
|
|
|
|
Re: TIME MACHINE & MISSING SPACE ON MY HARD DRIVE
Posted:
Nov 2, 2007 12:28 AM
in response to: Gordo9
|
|
|
Gordo,
Pay close attention to the link the Francine posted. I believe she has the right of it, and that your external was (at least temporarily) disconnected while Time Machine was in the process of backing things up.
When a volume is mounted, it actually attaches to your file system in a hidden "volumes" folder. If the volume becomes unavailable while data is being written to it, the "virtual folder" that OS X uses to mount it, and which actually exists on your internal hard drive, will become the real recipient of the data being written.
Please read the information Francine has linked.
Scott
17" Macbook Pro, HAL 9000
Mac OS X (10.4.10)
|
|
|
