hard drive full for no reason

If you go under the Apple menu to "About this Mac" and then select "More info" and look under the Storage tab, how much free space do you show? Please post a screenshot of the Storage tab display (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4391).

Clinton

Looks as if you've almost 250GB of music on a 500GB drive... and only 12.5GB free. As a general rule of thunb (and this goes back to my Data General days - not simply a new rule) you should keep at least 10% free space on your drive (50GB). You're just going to have to trim down your iTunes library. You could, for example, put it on a larger external drive - but that does mean that you'd only be able to access the library when connected to the external drive.

The 'right' solution for you might just be to invest in a larger internal drive - you can get internals up to 1TB now for a reasonable price. We can help you out on this if this is the way your choose to go.

Call back...

Clinton

For the las month my drive has been creeping fuller and fuller until, you can see, it will soon crash. The odd thing is that before it started I was doing a lot of iPhone development. Then I started a new job and haven't had time. But a month ago I had maybe 75G free. Then 2 weeks agon I had 25G free. Then a week ago I had 15G free. Now it almost GONE! I have no idea why! I can't find large files. I'm not using Time Machine. Never have.

In fact, when I use clean-up utilities, after caches are cleaned, it LOSES space!

What's happening???? I'm afraid it's going to die soon!

Some 'clean up utilities' (Disk Drill comes to mind) actually store information away on your hard drive so that you'll not 'lose' it. It's best to stay away from all 'cleaning' utilities.

See -> What is "Other" and what can I do about it? Some helpful insights there...

Clinton

Did you notice that my OTHER is 182GB? I only started using CCleaner after the disk started getting really full. I've cleaned every cache and deleted every unneccessary app and file. I've even Emptied My Trash (as if). There's something wrong.

Did you follow any of the instructions in the link that I provided? Using OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to find unusually large files?

"Cleaning" apps can make the situation worse than it already is.

Clinton

I appreciate your efforts, Clinton, but here's OmniDisk's results. About 130Gb is TOTALLY MISSING! I'd love to find it and delete it. But it's well hidden. My MacBookPro is all but USELESS now.

I too now have a useless MacBook Pro. I basically only use it to play Facebook games. I am not storing music or photos, or anything like that. I believe this is a new virus. Yesterday out of the blue it seemingly froze, but then I realized that it was just slow. Some Google searching led me to check my disk space. I have a 500 GB hard drive and it is showing with only 27 G free. I noticed too when I shut it down and turned it back on my Sophos anti virus was downloading an update. I'm wondering if someone found a way to shove tons of useless data into Macs through some virus. Please help. Useless MacBook Pro here.

OmniDiskSweeper can only see files that you can see normally under the user account that runs the app. There are places on your hard drive that cannot be examined even with the usual admin user privileges. To look everywhere, run OmniDiskSweeper as root by executing the following command in the Terminal:

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

Alternately, if running a command like this in the Terminal is intimidating, you could use the WhatSize app recommended here:

Where did my Disk Space go?

Thx. I wish I could. But my MacbookPro is no longer inoperable. It's dead. Lights on. No one's home.

And I sure ain't buying a replacement Mac. Yeah, I developed and published a dozen iOS apps. Spent countless hours. Seen hundreds of downloads. And earned about $10. That'll buy me a new Mac, right?

Gotta edit. "No longer operable", that is.

If you desire more assistance, you're going to need to provide more details about what "no longer operable" means. As a developer, you should know how to tell us that.

It's clear you're angry, but we can't really help you in any way unless you can calm down.

"No longer operable" means the computer can no longer be operated. The power comes on, the spinning shell spins, but when it stops the screen is blank. Just blank white. What can be done? The hard drive seems to have over-filled? It's dead. Maybe I can buy a new hard drive and start over, right? Maybe I can salvage the data I paid for and the data I worked countless hours to create. Or maybe I can't. Angry? Yes. Who can help me?