Q: full startup disk
Upon start up, I am prompted that the Startup disk is full and that I must deleted files. When i hit okay, the desktop background appears with no icons or ways to navigate around the computer
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.3)
Posted on Sep 12, 2012 12:12 AM
It sounds to me like your drive is so full your computer has crashed. OSX is constantly writing files just to keep your computer running and other file creation by you is preventing this. Try shutting it down and restarting in Safe Mode.
Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X) - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
Safe Boot takes longer than normal startup - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1884
This will delete caches and hopefully give your computer a chance to run normally for a short while. These caches will rebuild so you do not have much time! Immediately start deleting files or copying them to another drive. A few GB should work at first but ultimately you should be keeping at least 20GB free at all times, or even more.
Posted on Sep 13, 2012 9:13 AM