"Disk Full" error when disk is not full

I had the same problem today. My Word document is only 500K in size. I am using Word 2008, 12.1.4, (080930) and my drive still has 80GB+ available.
The word doc is 79 pages long and has many graphics. At the end page 77 is in landscape mode and pages 78 and 79 are back in portrait mode.

The original file (which always creates the error) can be found here:
http://www.utdallas.edu/~wiorkow/ModIILect4.doc

I did two things to get rid of the error:
1) I converted the file to docx format
2) I cut the three last pages from the file and copied them into separate documents.
In a nutshell this seems to be a conversion error with word 2008 getting confused over older version documents.

The error is not showing when I work with the converted files, but the error always comes back when I open the original file.

I am receiving this message too and using FileVault. I have 120GB free on my 320GB drive, on a Spring'07 MacBook. Any ideas?

Hi dtemp, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

If you don't get an answer here, feel free to start a new topic to get the most helpers for your particular problem...

http://discussions.apple.com/post!default.jspa?forumID=758

How big is your Home Folder?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1974

Hey,

My home folder is approx. 148-150GB. I'm not trying to move files or anything, it seems I've just hit a fundamental limit on the size of a FileVaulted home directory! It says theres like only a few MB free... but when I back out into the root folder, it says theres like 120GB free on the drive. Is there a limit to the size of the sparse image file used for FileVault?

No, it actually thinks there are two different file systems and disks there, your Home "Disk" is Full, it's a Disk within a Disk, you need enough HD space to turn off Filevault get rid of what you can, empty trash, and turn Filevault on again... but you do not have enough free space on the regular HD to do that!

I have 120GB free on my 320GB drive, on a Spring'07 MacBook

From [Mac OS X 10.4 Help -Increasing the size of a FileVault home directory|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2338.html] :

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The maximum size of a FileVault home directory is set to the available disk space when FileVault is turned on. If you migrate a FileVault protected account and it's home directory to another computer the maximum size does not change and will not reflect any increase in disk space available on the new computer.

To increase the maximum size of the FileVault home directory, you need to turn off FileVault and then turn it on again. When FileVault is turned on it will set the maximum disk space to the space available on the new drive.
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See the support article for further details.

As BDAqua said, in order to turn off FileVault you will temporarily need enough free space on the drive to hold all the files that are currently in FileVault. Since there is 120GB left on the drive, you will first need to copy some files from the FileVault account to an external drive and then delete them from the FileVault account, such that the remaining files in FileVault occupy less than about 110 GB.

Did you try saving the file in docx format? There seems to be some error with Word when saving in the doc format for some files.

Robert

Did you try saving the file in docx format? There seems to be some error with a word when saving in the doc format.

Yep... this is probably it... I had a 80GB drive in my MacBook when the account was created (although it was created fresh in 10.5, not an upgrade from 10.4). A few months ago I swapped it for a 320GB drive. I actually did the swap by restoring a Time Machine backup onto the new drive while booted to the install DVD. AND apparently it capped my home directory at around 150GB. Interesting. Seems a bit arbitrary but interesting! Since the sparse image is expandable, I'm wondering why it isn't near-infinitely expandable...

At least my question is answered though! Let me know if I interpreted everything correctly. I have at least 10TB worth of drives to temporarily copy things onto so this isn't a biggie. I'll probably actually wait until 10.6 comes out to do the deed, since I usually do a format and fresh install on new OS releases anyway.

I actually did the swap by restoring a Time Machine backup onto the new drive while booted to the install DVD

I don't know how Time Machine deals with FileVault, but changing the drive size probably did create the problem.

BTW, it is a good idea to update your user profile here, so people will know what you are running and how best to help. (This is the Tiger forum!) Leopard uses a new and somewhat different data structure for FileVault, a "sparse-bundle" rather than a sparse-image. I don't know how much this matters.

Since the sparse image is expandable, I'm wondering why it isn't near-infinitely expandable...

The maximum size of a disk image has to be set when it is first created. This also happens in Disk Utility when you make your own blank disk image. I'm not sure of the reason, but it may be that the hidden directory structure created when you format an hfs+ volume requires that the volume size be specified in advance.

I had this problem as well. I had 200 G left on my computer but it wouldnt save my word doc. I got an error saying "Disk Full" when it was clearly not.


It was a doc someone sent me and I appended. I saved as a another word version and it worked.