Harddrive space "disappearing" vitrually

Hi Stephen,

Run Repair Disk, and if that doesn't do it, try a Safe Boot.

First check the S.M.A.R.T. status on your HD: Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility>in the panel at left, select the first item in the list/your HD mechanism>look at the bottom of the main window next to S.M.A.R.T. status and see if it says “Verified” or something more ominous like “Failing.”

If S.M.A.R.T. status is "Verified," run Repair Disk: Boot from install disc (insert disc>restart>immediately hold down c key and keep holding it until you see “Preparing Installation”)>at first screen select the language and click Continue> click on the Utilities Menu in the menu bar>open Disk Utility>select your HD in the panel on the left side>click Repair Disk at bottom of main window. Run this at least twice, and keep running it until it says “appears ok” twice in a row. If that doesn’t happen, you may need a stronger utility such as DiskWarrior or if the directory is damaged beyond repair, you may need to reinstall the OS, or you may have a damaged HD (repair utilities can only repair the directory structure, not the HD itself). When this is finished, quit Disk Utility, quit the installer, and restart. Once booted normally, go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility and run Repair Permissions.

Sometimes, running the periodic maintenance scripts manually can hek pclear u psuch issues. Info here:

http://thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html

My hard drive space has also been doing this recently. My macbook pro is now down to 8Mb! I have just tried the terminal solution, running maintenance scripts, as here:
http://thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html#Anchor-Determining-47857
quote
'The Terminal way

Using your Admin account, you can run all three maintenance scripts at once:

Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
At the Terminal prompt, type the following, exactly as written:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
Press Return.
Type your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.'

but it won't accept my password, or any typing thereof:

'To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:
Sorry, try again.
Password:
'

To continue:
I have booted from the dvd and run Disk Utility twice, both times with 'disk appears OK', and I have now run 'repair permissions' successfully. The HD is now showing 177Mb free, but there should be many Gbs free.

To continue further,
I downloaded Cocktail and ran that and did a Safe Boot. That brought me back to over 600Mb when I restarted. However, in the subsequent 5 minutes it has declined to 113Mb and since I typed that it is now 27MB
Have I got some nasty script installed?
Thanks for any help.

i have a 2007 macbookpro running 10.5.8 and it is doing the same thing. yesterday there was 87 gigs in use and i thought that was very strange when i havent added any software and should be 73 gigs used up on my harddrive. now i look and see there is 83gigs used up. i cant see any relationship with Word being a problem in my machine as i dont use Word very much. once or twice a week is the most i use it. i need to research this more. i usually perform one Archive and install about once a year. since my warrenty ran out i havent had any problems to speak of or complain about for 2 years or the need to perform a OS reinstall until now. and i will watch this thread.

It is very important to keep at least 15% free space available on the HD.

Use one or more of the following free apps to see where the mystery HD space has gone. Frequently a large log file will be the cause and can be deleted. It is sometimes possible to find the source of that log file in Console, or a process gone wild in Activity Monitor.

Disk Inventory X
http://www.derlien.com/

OmniDiskSweeper
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/download/

Grand Perspective
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/#download

Many thanks! I used Disk Inventory X. It was 796 copies of a large Mail message, occupying 32Gb, which also explains why Mail had stopped downloading my mail.

rhabdornis wrote:
796 copies of a large Mail message, occupying 32Gb, which also explains why Mail had stopped downloading my mail.

That explains a lot. Makes you wonder how the heck it decided to make 796 copies! After all that, I'd suggest rebuilding your mailbox.

Hi B,

Please see my earlier post:

It is very important to keep at least 15% free space available on the HD.

Use one or more of the following free apps to see where the mystery HD space has gone. Frequently a large log file will be the cause and can be deleted. It is sometimes possible to find the source of that log file in Console, or a process gone wild in Activity Monitor.

Disk Inventory X
http://www.derlien.com/

OmniDiskSweeper
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/download/

Grand Perspective
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/#download

tjk,I will try those. thanks for your help! Barcj923