The free space on Macintosh HD is larger than its capacity?

Nothing at all is shown for space used. I suggest you unmount and remount the drive. If it still gives nonsensical output in the Info window, you should reformat it.

Try verifying the file system, per #6 in Using Disk Utility. If that fails, repair it per the yellow box there.

The "Get Info" window above reads: "Capacity: 319.21 GB"

That makes sense.

My question is why it says: "Available: 323.64 GB"

I wonder if that 323.64 GB value is a consequence of your having an unusually large chunk of "local snaphots" being reported on the HD. That space shows as "Backups" in the Storage tab, and the 189.74 GB value there seems odd - not only is it very large, but it doesn't seem to correspond to the color graph - on the graph it is smaller than Movies, which is reported as only 80.18GB. But if you do use the value of 189.74GB for Backups, the following doesn't look like a coincidence:

.

133.93 GB(free space per Storage) + 189.74 GB (Backups) = 323.67 GB

Get Info reports 323.64 GB "available"

The "Backups" space gets added to the "actual" free space reported by the disk volume before being displayed by the Finder, and it may be handled that way in a Get Info window as well.

If "Verify Disk" doesn't show any errors, then as another measure of disk space use, what does Disk Utility report when you click on Macintosh HD in the left pane?

snowboarder4x4 wrote:

. . .

I also tried the second option (repairing the disc with Lion Recovery),

Did that say the disk "appears to be ok"?

but the finder window and the "About This Mac" window show the same thing.

The categories on the Storage display depend on Spotlight indexing, so it may take a while to be updated. If it doesn't change in a while, go to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy and add your HD to it for a few moments, then remove it again. That should trigger a complete re-indexing (which will take a while, of course).

The Finder window still shows Available is more than Capacity, and nothing for Used? That's bizarre. There must be a very large negative number for "used" that it's not displaying, but that's making Available wrong, too.

snowboarder4x4 wrote:

. . .

Do you think that my system took a snapshot of the virtual machine and that is what is contributing to the large chunk of local snapshots on my hard drive?

Yes, exactly. Time Machine makes a "local snapshot" every hour while your Mac is awake and Time Machine is turned on.

They're different from normal TM backups (copies sent to a different drive). What happens is, when you change or delete something, it isn't really deleted, not even when you empty the trash. It's moved into the Snapshot database instead, so you don't really get the space back (according to Disk Utility and the Storage display). You do get it back according to the Finder (and Get Info), at least when they're working right, since the Local Snapshots will be deleted automatically if the disk gets over 80% full.

snowboarder4x4 wrote:

. . .

In the mean time, did you read my post above about local snapshots being affected by the virtual machine? I think that may have caused the problem. What do you think about that?

Our last 2 posts crossed in the mail. 😉

I still can't figure out what's wrong with the Finder. Long shot -- try a Restart.

I'm inclined to think that the actual used and free space are correct as reported by Disk Utility, and that the apparent very large and possibly incorrect value reported for Backups is causing the bizarre result in Finder and Get Info. As another and more direct measure of disk space use, what result do you get from this Terminal command?

df -H /

If that agrees with Disk Utility, you might next try turning off Time Machine for a while, which I believe should delete the local snapshots. You could then recheck things in Get Info and see if the report looks more normal. I don't know how long this would take. Pondini is our Time Machine expert - let's wait for his opinion about this.

jsd2 wrote:

I'm inclined to think that the actual used and free space are correct as reported by Disk Utility,

Me, too.

and that the apparent very large and possibly incorrect value reported for Backups is causing the bizarre result in Finder and Get Info.

I don't think so; there's no connection between the two, with the possible exception of total disk size (I don't know where Storage gets that). All the category breakdowns on the Storage display come from the Spotlight index -- if you exclude it from indexing, everything goes into "Other."

Snowboarder4x4: what do you see at the bottom of your Finder windows for "Available"? (If there's no display, select View > Show Status Bar from a Finder menubar).

you might next try turning off Time Machine for a while, which I believe should delete the local snapshots.

Yes. It will take a while, of course.

What I've been wondering about is, if there's a problem with the Local Snapshots database, creating a large negative number, when "added" to the other stuff used, that might produce a negative number.

If that's subtracted from the Capacity, then Available might be larger than Capacity.

Get Info may be coded to show dashes instead of something silly, like a negative, for Used.