Your startup disk is almost full

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dc190760 Author

Level 1

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Your startup disk is almost full

"Your start up disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your startup disk by deleting files." I have received this warning several times but i am very confused by it. I have only one 38gb hard drive and I have 27gb free. How much more free space does it need?

emac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 512 MB SDRAM

Posted on Apr 11, 2008 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

PT

Level 7

20,888 points

Apr 11, 2008 6:58 AM in response to dc190760

My standard list of things to do first for these weird sort of problems. There are several alternate programs that do the same things with some combining the functions of some of the ones below. So everyone has their favorites, but here are mine...

Run MacJanitor (free download) to do all the Unix Cron Maintenance scripts.
Run Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities) and repair disk permissions on your start up drive (typically your internal drive). Also verify any other drives mounted on the system, especially any external drives.
Run Preferential Treatment (free download) to check for corrupt/damaged application and system preference files.
Run Cache Out X (free download) to clear all system and application caches.
Reboot your Mac (after running Cache Out X you are given the option to restart the machine).

Additional info on this sort of thing... Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html Maintaining Mac OS X http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintainingmacosx.html Patrick

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Answer 2

dc190760 Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2008 8:24 AM in response to PT

Thanks, I'll try those things.

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2008 8:38 AM in response to PT

Related question--if I am getting this message, but I have another drive in my computer, and that drive has plenty of room on it, can I change the start up drive? How do I change the start up drive? Is it recommended to do this?

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Answer 4

PT

Level 7

20,888 points

Apr 11, 2008 10:20 AM in response to AKFoxfire

The only way you can change the start up drive is to install a bootable version of Mac OS onto that drive and then actually boot from that drive. You can not switch it on the fly after you have booted up.
Patrick

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