Lost disk space - how do I recover it?

I tried Disk Inventory X - a nice application.

I came up with a nice inventory of used disk space - but the program did not account for the 200gigs of missing disk space on my hard drive. What hogging that much space? How can I get the space back? A reinstall?

Yes, I'd found this link. The challenge is that making sense of the data is irksome.

My readout from Terminal yielded these results:

2.8M /.fseventsd
248M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol
7.0G /Applications
3.9M /bin
0B /cores
4.0K /dev
1.0K /home
8.9G /Library
1.0K /net
0B /Network
1.0G /private
2.6M /sbin
2.3G /System
130G /Users
519M /usr
*168G /Volumes*
318G /
318G total

That means the "block" is probably somewhere around 160-180gb in size. "Volumes" seems to be the likely culprit. But now that we've pinned down the cause...what commands would I need to type in Terminal? I'm at the doorstep - I just can't can't get in, yet.

Thanks!!

Thanks for staying with me so far.

I followed your advice, chose "Go to Folder" from the Finder's "Go" menu, and entered "/Volumes/" as the path. I ended up by getting three files.

*BOOTCAMP zero KB*
*DISK 4KB*
*G-DRIVE zero KB*

That roughly 160GB+ block still eludes me. Where exactly is it and how can I find and delete it?

Pardon my "terminal" ignorance. I entered the Terminal commands, but "command not found" was returned.

"Is" - is that spelled "capital I" (as in Isadore) or "lower case l" (as in languish)?
"-Al" - again, is that spelled "capital I" (as in Isadore) or "lower case l (as in languish)?

It's this forum's sans serif script that confuses me.

Thanks again!

Using your instructions, Terminal yielded these results. My user name is replaced here with (username).

Last login: Sat Feb 6 14:36:16 on ttys000
adsl-71-141-123-132:~ (username)$ ls -Al /Volumes/
total 8
*lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 6 13:51 DISK -> /*
d--x--x--x+ 9 root admin 306 Feb 5 11:02 G-DRIVE
adsl-71-141-123-132:~ (username)$

The DISK entry is for my computer, and the G-Drive for my backup disk. But since the former was not appended with a "d", I don't detect an error - or at least, Terminal doesn't.

I deleted the XP partition from my HD just in case, but still end up with these results:
Capacity: 639GB
Used: 342.81GB
Available: 296.98GB

I should have about 460GB available, by my latest count.

Out of a 639GB hard drive - I now have only 50gb free space remaining. I should have 450gb+ remaining. The problem is, what to do - and what not to do?

Would it be best to erase, or archive and install?
Is there any utility that will help give me my drive back?
Are there any experts who can remedy the problem?

Thanks for helping out!

I logged onto Terminal and performed the command. After a minute, Terminal came up with this:

*168G /volumes/G-DRIVE*
*168G /volumes*
*168G total*
*adsl-71-141-112-156:~ (myusername)$*
*adsl-71-141-112-156:~ (myusername)$*

Is this helpful? Should I start digging a grave for my iMac?

I'll need some help with this suggestion.

The G-Drive doesn't appear unless it's plugged in for a backup. Otherwise, it doesn't appear in the Finder. When I power it on, it will appear on the finder; when I put it in the Trash, it obediently powers down. So I suppose I've done this step already, unless there's a procedure I'm missing. There's been no change in volume information, either.

Thanks for your help so far!