I have an old Macbook Air. Why does HD only allow access to 30 GB when the drive is 121 GB? (See screenshot inside.)

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I have an old Macbook Air. Why does HD only allow access to 30 GB when the drive is 121 GB? (See screenshot inside.)

As the title mentions, I have an older (Early 2014 MacBook Air OS X Yosemite). I'm not very knowledgeable on Macs but I know some basics.

The 'About this Mac' window shows the hard drive should be 121 GB, but looking at the storage, it appears I only have 30 GB available to me (I can't even explore the other 90 GB to see what is using the space). I am aware that a chunk will be system files, but 90 GB seems like a lot, and it seems like I should at least be able to access/look at those files or to see what is taking up so much space.

I have attached a screenshot showing some information that will hopefully be useful.

Any help that can be provided in figuring out how to access the mystery 90 GB would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Air

Posted on Apr 2, 2022 3:34 PM

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Answer 1

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Jack-19

Level 8

46,008 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:33 PM in response to L1veMike

Thanks for letting me know. It seems that you'll need to erase your disk and reinstall macOS. However, since this will erase all data, you need a backup. If you do not already have a Time Machine backup drive, here’s an excellent one sold by Apple: LaCie 2TB Mobile Drive External Hard Drive USB-C - Apple. You will also need this cable. You can then follow the steps in this Apple Support article to setup your Time Machine backup: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support. After a successful backup, you can erase your Mac.

Shut down your Mac, then startup into Internet Recovery Mode (Option-Command-R) by immediately pressing and holding those keys at startup. Then, Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support. When erasing your Mac, select "View" > "Show All Devices" in Disk Utility and erase the main drive. Its name will end in "Media". Make sure this information matches:

Name: Macintosh HD

Format: APFS

Scheme: GUID

After erasing your startup disk, reinstall macOS: How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support.

After erasing your Mac and reinstalling macOS, you will be presented with a Setup Assistant. Set up your Mac again, and restore from your backup: Restore your Mac from a backup - Apple Support.

Jack

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Answer 2

Jack-19

Level 8

46,008 points

Apr 2, 2022 3:35 PM in response to L1veMike

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.

First, go to Disk Utility, and select "View" > "Show All Devices". Select each device (or entry shown), and take a screenshot of it and upload them all here.

Jack

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Answer 3

L1veMike Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:44 PM in response to Jack-19

Thanks for responding so quickly. I kinda thought resetting the whole thing would be what I would need to do in the end. Just a couple of things:

If I don't care about losing the data, do I really need to do a back-up? (There is nothing on the laptop I want to save.)
Will doing this get rid of that weird 91 GB partition and let me get all that space back for use? I'd hate to go through the whole process of resetting the computer if I'm just going to have the same problem afterward.

Thanks!

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Answer 4

L1veMike Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:15 PM in response to Jack-19

I'm new here, so forgive me if I'm just blind, but I don't see an 'edit' button, so I'm double-posting a new reply with some additional information.

I was able to get a different view of the Disk Utility by booting into macOS recovery over the internet, which gives it a newer-type view, which may help. You can see the 91.1 GB of "Free space", but it doesn't allow me to do anything with it, (despite the tool tip saying, "You may delete or resize this to allocate the space to preceding partition"), all the buttons are greyed out when I select that portion of the graph.

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Answer 5

Jack-19

Level 8

46,008 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:19 PM in response to L1veMike

Thanks for the screenshots & photos. From the Disk Utility in Internet Recovery Mode, try to select "Macintosh HD" and in the "size" field, enter the value for the "Free space" and "Macintosh HD" to build a ~120GB SSD.

Jack

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Answer 6

L1veMike Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:26 PM in response to Jack-19

Are you referring to the field in the third photo that says "29.6 GB"? If so, unfortunately, I can't edit that field, and it also says below the field, "This volume can't be resized".

I can click the 'GB' drop down next to it, but that only lets me change how the data size is displayed, (KB, MB, GB, TB, etc).

Thanks for helping me with this, by the way.

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Answer 7

Jack-19

Level 8

46,008 points

Apr 2, 2022 9:46 PM in response to L1veMike

If I don't care about losing the data, do I really need to do a back-up?

Not really.

Will doing this get rid of that weird 91 GB partition and let me get all that space back for use? I'd hate to go through the whole process of resetting the computer if I'm just going to have the same problem afterward.

As long as you erase the main SSD device (the name ends in "Media"), yes.

Jack

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Answer 8

L1veMike Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2022 4:03 PM in response to Jack-19

There wasn't a "View" menu choice, (maybe my OS is too old... I've included a shot of the menu choices), but here are some screenshots of selecting each drive shown in the Disk Utility: