only 39GB available on 300GB drive, but only 31GB being used...

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guitar guy Author

Level 2

327 points

only 39GB available on 300GB drive, but only 31GB being used...

Hello.

I have an old 300GB hard drive from the old white iBook G4 lap top.

I used it as an external drive.

When i Get Info on this drive from my Power Mac G5 quad, it reads: capacity 232.76GB, available 39.15GB, used 193.61GB

When i Get Info on this drive from my Mac Air....................it reads: capacity 249.93GB, available 42.04GB, used 207.89GB

That is a bit confusing, though i don't see it as too much of an issue.

My issue it that there are only 3 folders on this hard drive which total about 30GB only.

(One computer (G5) says that the 3 folders add up to a total of 31.79GB, and the other computer (Mac Air) says that the 3 folders add up to a total of 29.65GB)

Now, regardless of this discrepancy (which i do want to find out why), I should still have at least 198GB available on this HD.

So, i launched Omni Disk Sweeper, and it says that 193.6GB are used on this HD (on the "Drive List" window before I do the actual sweep), and after I sweep this drive, it says that only 27.7GB are used on this drive, and it shows the breakdown of the 3 folders on this drive.

I'm just wondering how I'm using 193GB on this drive.

Any thoughts?

Thank you!!!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), quad core

Posted on Jul 19, 2012 9:13 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jul 19, 2012 11:39 AM in response to guitar guy

Hello, the dicrepency between the to is due to apple switching to 1K = 1,000 Bytes instead of the old 1K = 1,024 Bytes... as I recall they changed it in 10.6.x

OK, now the missing GBs.

We either have hidden folders/files on the drive and/or Permissions on them betond your right's.

See WZZZ's post here on how to run ODS in root mode...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2703600?start=0&tstart=0

Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities). Copy the following line and paste it directly into the Terminal window, then type Return:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Enter your admin password when prompted (it will not echo on the screen), and type Return.

This should open OmniDiskSweeper's "Drive List" window. Click inside it and then sweep your HD as you did before. This time OmniDiskSweeper should run with "root" privileges - see what you get this way.

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Answer 2

guitar guy Author

Level 2

327 points

Jul 19, 2012 12:19 PM in response to BDAqua

hey Aqua, is there supposed to be a space after the word "sudo"?

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jul 19, 2012 2:17 PM in response to guitar guy

Yes.

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Answer 4

guitar guy Author

Level 2

327 points

Jul 19, 2012 2:57 PM in response to BDAqua

wow, ok so with root priveledges, ODS has been working for 20 mins, and it is still sizing up a file named ".Trashes".

This file is up to 688 GB large, and still growing.

It appears that Time Machine is the culprit here, causing the ghost GBs.

When i click on this .Trashes file, it shows that within this file, the next level down, is a file titled "505", and within that is a file(or folder? can't tell) called "Backups.backupdb 02-52-33", and within that, "My Name Power Mac G5 (5)", and within that, there are like 20 different backups which are labelled as dates.

Aqua, i don't mind pulling the 3 folders that I actually need off of this drive, saving them elsewhere temporarily, and just reformatting this drive.

Would that be the way to go?

ODS is still sizing up this .Trashes file. It's up to 845 GBs......

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Answer 5

guitar guy Author

Level 2

327 points

Jul 19, 2012 4:20 PM in response to guitar guy

so, Omni Disk Sweeper finally finished sweeping this HD an hour later.

It shows the file named .Trashes as being 2.6TB large.

Are all these files deletable? They didn't exist until you had me use the Terminal....

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jul 19, 2012 4:26 PM in response to guitar guy

Those that are hidden files... have you emptied the Trash on that Drive?

There are terminal instructions here to use Terminal get rid of those files.

Solving Trash Problems...

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

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Answer 7

guitar guy Author

Level 2

327 points

Jul 19, 2012 5:11 PM in response to BDAqua

hmm.... i didn't know that there was a trash on that drive, because i use it as an external drive, and there is no OS on it, so I don't see a trash icon, or a menu that has "Empty Trash" in it.

I will follow this Terminal instruction.

I guess you think that is better than just reformatting, being that i only have 3 relatively small files on this HD...?

Thanks!

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