Couldn’t create temporary file.

Question

Couldn’t create temporary file.

I have a 1TB drive in my Mac Pro running Mavericks 10.9.4 and I went to disk utility to erase some free space on the drive. However I keep getting the error message:

Secure Erase Free Space failed

Secure erase Free Space failed with the error:

Couldn't create temporary file.

I Googled the error message and couldn't find anything. The error message is heaps unhelpful, it doesn't tell me why it couldn't create a temporary file or what I can do to fix it. Please help, it would be much much appreciated!

Mac Pro (Early 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Aug 29, 2014 12:59 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 29, 2014 7:52 AM in response to martinpgibson

Erase the volume securely and then restore the data from a backup.

Reply

Answer 2

Apr 26, 2015 2:51 PM in response to Linc Davis

I have a time machine backup that is up to date, with tons of extra space. Could I copy over the files I have on my macbook pro hard drive and recopy back once I have wiped out the hard drive, thinking maybe there is a problem copied onto the ™ backup?

Reply

Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Apr 27, 2015 9:50 AM in response to dorosbourne

Yes, you can do that, but with an up-to-date Time Machine backup, if there is a problem with the backup, then copying the files back would/could bring the problem back.

Reply