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Storage problems.

My mac book pro is saying it is running out of start up disk space?

I moved my iphoto which was over 50g. to an external hard drive.

I have reduced every thing I can and it is still showing as full with only 139 K left and all in yellow. 'Other'

I can't find what it is that is it using up. I have no idea.

Any suggestions. I can't even add a photo any mor

MacBook Pro, Other OS, Lion OS

Posted on Nov 12, 2011 11:57 AM

Reply
9 replies

Nov 12, 2011 12:07 PM in response to DAFfromchesterfield

Clone your drive to a large external backup for safety and while you repace the drive or start deleting or moving things.


The nice thing about that is the entire drive as is would be on your 1-2TB external


Look at your drive using a utilty, one such OmniDiskSweeper that will show what and where including hidden folders Might have data in hidden folder


./Volumes/


where there should onl be a small alias for each known volume


buy a new drive kit, with empty external for your existing drive

Nov 13, 2011 1:52 AM in response to The hatter

Thank you for you reply and I can see how that would work. I don't have a large enough external hard drive to clone my mac. And to be frank the thoought of doing it scares me! :O(


Also I have removed bulk stuff for e.g. 50 odd gig of photos. The curious thing is thay made no difference and in fact the situation seems to have got worse, and back to where I was before I began deleting stuff and removing the iphoto. library. Almost has if it is stuck in the trash. Even though I have emptied the trash and shows no signs of any thing in there.


Is there a simpler way I know it might take onger but not quite so drastic. If I am to do it my self that is.


Regards Dena

Nov 13, 2011 3:46 AM in response to X423424X

Many thanks. I will go through it. However I don't think there is not much left on my computer in the way of files to be delete anymore.


On Wedneday last I was in a project session at the Apple shop. This problem of the startup dsic being full had started before I went that day and I had removed as much as I could before I attended that day.


The tutor checked my files etc and we moved as much as we could over to my portable hard drive.


However nothing two tutors could not see anything that would cause the disc to fill up. Even suggestef that I put my iPhoto library back on as that should not be a problem and is easier to work with from the computer its self.


What ever it is that is filling my disc up is not eveident. It is something hidden or some sort of phenonemen!


regards Dena

Nov 13, 2011 5:20 AM in response to DAFfromchesterfield

Does anyone make any thing of this from my console ????

Cheers Dena


Nov 13 09:27:40 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Wake reason: EC LID0

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: HID tickle 105 ms

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: wlEvent: en1 en1 Link DOWN

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity).

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: en1: 802.11d country code set to 'X3'.

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: en1: Supported channels 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 100 104 108 112 116 120 124 128 132 136 140

Nov 13 09:30:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 == fAudioEngineArray" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 3047 goto Exit

Nov 13 09:30:23: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Nov 13 09:30:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: MacAuthEvent en1 Auth result for: 00:21:29:78:91:2e MAC AUTH succeeded

Nov 13 09:30:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: wlEvent: en1 en1 Link UP

Nov 13 09:30:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Up on en1

Nov 13 09:30:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: en1: BSSID changed to 00:21:29:78:91:2e

Nov 13 09:30:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1

Nov 13 09:30:28 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: utun_ctl_connect: creating interface utun0

Nov 13 09:30:28 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: utun0: attached with 0 suspended link-layer multicast membership(s)

Nov 13 09:30:54 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:31:24: --- last message repeated 6 times ---

Nov 13 09:31:25 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:36:25 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:36:55: --- last message repeated 5 times ---

Nov 13 09:43:13 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:44:43: --- last message repeated 1 time ---

Nov 13 09:44:43 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:45:13: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Nov 13 09:46:23 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 09:46:53: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Nov 13 10:33:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 10:37:26: --- last message repeated 1 time ---

Nov 13 10:37:26 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: HFS: Low Disk: freeblks: 261686, warninglimit: 262144

Nov 13 11:02:26 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: HFS: Very Low Disk: freeblks: 129955, dangerlimit: 131072

Nov 13 11:02:27 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: HFS: Very Low Disk: freeblks: 130926, dangerlimit: 131072

Nov 13 11:27:21 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 13 11:27:51: --- last message repeated 7 times ---

Nov 13 11:28:15 Dena-Fanshawes-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

Nov 14, 2011 9:52 AM in response to Pondini

Thank you all.


With the help of this little program downloaded http://www.derlien.com/


I have been able to identify where my storage space had gone.


It was being taken up in mail. For some reason 'keep copies to be able to read off line had been ticked'. How this happened I don't know, presumably at some time I had been asked if I wanted to keep something?


Clearing it has released 180 gig of storage. Phew! Hope this might help someone else should this problem arise.

Storage problems.

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