Adobe Photoshop Scratch Disk Full/Startup Disk Full error - PLEASE HELP

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Level 2

160 points

Adobe Photoshop Scratch Disk Full/Startup Disk Full error - PLEASE HELP

Dear ALL,

I have started to notice recently that when I run Photoshop CS on my Mac OSX Tiger, I am getting the Startup Disk Full error message. Never happended before.

Since my initial post I downloaded Macaroni (utility) and have run the daily/weekly/monthly backups, checked the /private/var/vm and /private/var/log and /Volumes. Nothing unusual there...

When I started getting this error I had 32GB left on a looked at my HD and I seem to have 32GB available on a 152GB drive. Now after deleting I have 76GB capacity left.

But when I tried to open a Photoshop PSD or TIFF file and do a crop I still get tge Startup Disk is Full error followed by the Adobe Photoshop error Scratch Disk is Full.

I am thinking of running the Disk Utility from the Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and doing a Verify Disk and Verify Disk Permissions followed by Repair Disk Permissions. I will be logged into the machine whilst doing this. Is there any danger in this as I have read elsewhere that I need to do this from a bootable volume. If that is the case how do I create a bootable disk/cd? If not then what is the cure to my Disk Full as surely there is now nearly 50% FREE!!!!!

Please help.

Max

Power MAC G5 Dual 2.0, 30" ACD, RADEON X8000XT card, Mac OS X (10.4.4), I also have a IMAC G5 :-)

Posted on Oct 18, 2006 8:28 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 18, 2006 8:41 PM in response to Max Shafiq

Hi Max;

How much RAM do you have?

How large are your photos?

Allan

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Answer 2

Max Shafiq Author

Level 2

160 points

Oct 18, 2006 9:07 PM in response to Allan Eckert

2GB of RAM and the photo files are approx 32MB.

I have an external Firewire drive that I backup the entire system once a month. I just went to that as I do not have a bootable CD, and ran Disk Utility (Verify Disk) on the Macintosh HD. To my horror I got the following messages:

Verify Disk
Checking......
Checking......
Checking......
Checking Volume Information

Volume Header needs minor repair
The Volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1HFS Volume Check
Volume needs repair

First Aid Failed...

Dear All,
Can I repair/fix by booting from the backup drive and running Disk Utility again, or will I need to create a bootable CD?

Many Thanks

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Answer 3

Max Shafiq Author

Level 2

160 points

Oct 18, 2006 9:47 PM in response to Allan Eckert

Any further thoughts as to why this is happening to me for the past 2 days put of the BLUE 😟

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Answer 4

Oct 19, 2006 6:33 AM in response to Max Shafiq

Hi Max;

If I understand you correctly, you booted from your backup drive and ran Verify Disk from Disk Utility which is the correct thing to do. I would try to run Repair Disk from Disk Utility and see what happens. If it is not able to repair the disk you will need to get a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior.

Allan

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Answer 5

AJ

Level 5

7,075 points

Oct 19, 2006 6:39 AM in response to Max Shafiq

But when I tried to open a Photoshop PSD or TIFF file
and do a crop I still get tge Startup Disk is Full
error followed by the Adobe Photoshop error Scratch
Disk is Full.

Last I checked, the rule of thumb for Pshop is it takes up to 5x the size of the file for temp space...so if you are working with large files...

OS X gets upset when there is less than about 20% space free...or about 30gb on your system...

Note in Pshop preferences, its default scratch space is the boot drive. Since the OS uses free space as VM, and if you have low ram (or are running multiple programs at once), and are working with large files in PShop, then it is theoretically possible to run out of space, or at least get below the 20% free that X prefers, so it's complaining.

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Answer 6

Max Shafiq Author

Level 2

160 points

Oct 19, 2006 8:07 AM in response to AJ

Yes that looks like a good enough explanation. I am about to boot from an external CD and run the Disk Utility. Hopefully this will fix the issue and I have not caused too much irreversible damage (fingers crossed).

I wonder if there is someway of telling PS to not use the Startup Disk as a scratch and maybe point it to some external drive?

Max

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Answer 7

Oct 19, 2006 8:33 AM in response to Max Shafiq

Hi Max;

You can point the scratch disk for PS CS to another disk using Perferences under PS CS. I am at work now and I don't have access to my Mac from here. If you need more directions on how to do this, reply back and I'll answer when I get home.

Allan

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Answer 8

Max Shafiq Author

Level 2

160 points

Oct 19, 2006 8:55 AM in response to Max Shafiq

OK I gave it a shot after doing the repair and all seems fine now. I gave photoshop a go (cautiously) and no Startup Disk Full Errors. I am not going to push my luck today...

Hopefully things will stay working 🙂

Thanks all.

Max

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Answer 9

Max Shafiq Author

Level 2

160 points

Oct 19, 2006 8:59 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Allan,

I would appreciate it if you could leave some directions here at your convenience.

Thx

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Answer 10

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Oct 19, 2006 9:27 AM in response to Max Shafiq

PS will always use the boot disk for scratch to some extent even with an alternate primary scratch disk.

Be sure to turn off Spotlight as it causes problems.

4GB of RAM would be nice, I understand small files don't work well if there is more than 4GB RAM but large files will. OS X uses free RAM as cache and RAM disk before using disk drives.

How much RAM is allocated to PS? More RAM would help.

A dedicated lean boot drive helps. Install just what is needed for your work, use a separate drive for data, and yet another RAID volume for scratch.

When in doubt, backup with SuperDuper, and do an erase and then restore. Always backup before repairing; and never, ever, use an old version of Tiger CD/DVD - like 10.4.2 on 10.4.7/.8. Use "fsck" instead, or your emergency boot drive.

Also, give Applejack a shot and delete the cache folders and swap files from time to time to keep a system humming. CS/CS2 and Tiger benefit nicely from more RAM.

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