iMovie '08 Capacity Full and Cannot Transfter DVD's into Macbook

Question

Level 1

2 points

iMovie '08 Capacity Full and Cannot Transfter DVD's into Macbook

I recently purchased a 13" Macbook Unibody off eBay. The unit is in good shape and the previous owner has installed a Zagg Invisible Shield over the entire Macbook and the battery holds a full charge.

When I try to import a DVD to my desktop so I can edit it using iMovie '08, I get the error "Unable to create 'DVD Video Recording.dmg' (Input/Output Error). At the bottom of the screen it says DVD Video Recording Capacity 2.1 GB
Avaiable 0 Bytes
Used 2.1 GB
Number of Files 4,293,886,887

Appearantly, the previous owner has used up the capacity of the DVD recorder. Can you please tell me how to "wipe" or free the space up so I can utilize iMovie '08. Thank You,

Curt Bradley

Macbook 13.3 Unibody, Mac OS X (10.0.x), 2.4ghz 320gb 4gb RAM

Posted on May 30, 2009 6:16 PM

Reply

Answer 1

May 30, 2009 11:28 PM in response to IamR.Ph.

Hi, IamR.Ph.

and welcome to the discussions.

I guess this indicates that the disk is full, or that you cannot write to the disk. Please, start "Activity Monitor" (under "Applications -> Utilities") and check for "Disk usage". What is the result? How much space is left?

It sounds as if you have still the files of the previous owner on the disk. You might want to do a new "clean" installation of the system. Or, if you have "Administrator privilege", then you would possibly like to eliminate the account of the previous owner, and clean the disk.

Please report back with the info on these questions, and someone will help you further.

thomas

Reply

Answer 2

IamR.Ph. Author

Level 1

2 points

May 31, 2009 4:53 AM in response to Thomas Bauer

Hello Thomas,

Thanks for your reply. I did as instructed and Space Utilized indicates: 20.09 GB and Space Free: 277.69 GB. When I received the Macbook I inserted the Applications Install DVD and entered my personal info. I thought this was the clean install you are referring to?

When I purchased the item, the previous owner stated the only blemish was a dead pixel at the bottom of the screen and he showed a picture of it in his add. After re-installing the applications DVD, this one dead pixel is no longer there. I don't know if this is a clue, but I am including all the info I can.

Thanks for Your Help,

Curt Bradley, R.Ph.

Reply

Answer 3

IamR.Ph. Author

Level 1

2 points

May 31, 2009 5:20 AM in response to IamR.Ph.

Hello Again,

I checked out System Memory in the Activity Monitor and it indicates
Free:2.97GB ; VM Size: 31.57 GB

Wired: 414.92 MB Page Ins: 167.48 MB

Active: 322.36 MB Page Outs: 0 Bytes

Inactive: 45.57 MB Swap Used: 0 Bytes

Used: 782.80 MB

When I click on Disk Activity in indicates:
Reads In: 34065 Data Read: 1.4 GB

Writes Out: 11885 Data Written 703.89 MB

Read In/Read Out and Data Read/Data Written all say 0 Bytes

When I double clicked on Activity Monitor it indicates:

Real Memory Size: 18.43 MB (this fluctuates between 18.39 and 18.50 MB)

Virtual Memory Size: 420.77 MB/421.00 MB

Shared Memory Size: 0 Bytes

Private Memory Size: 8.54 MB/8.71 MB

Virtual Private Memory: 42.45MB/42.67MB

Why do these numbers fluctuate every second or two?

Reply

Answer 4

May 31, 2009 8:47 AM in response to IamR.Ph.

Hello, IamR.Ph

thanks for the info.

first "clean installation".
Look here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545, and scan for "Erase and Install". You must have the installation disks, i hope, also for the system; they go with each macintosh. This "Erase and Install" means that the hard disk will be newly formatted, and all previous info will be wiped out. I would do that in any case if i bought a computer second hand.
There is also the possibility to do an "Erase free space" in Disk Utility (in Applications->Utilities). This erases not only the file names from the directory, but writes (one or more times) "0" and "1" over the entire "free space", and really eliminates the previous information there.

However, your 2nd mail contains info which makes it very likely that it is not the free disk space on the hard disk, but something else. You seem to have 4 GB RAM, that's good, and most of it is free... The changing numbers depend on the status of the different processes. Behind the screens a lot of tasks are going on which are hidden to the users.

all this sounds ok to me, so there is another problem. I have no experience with iMovie, so cannot really help on this point. You might want to wish to repost in the iMovie section, which is here:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=141

Still, i would make sure that nothing of the prvious owner is on the disk.

Success, and sorry that i cant help

Thomas

Reply