Q: can't reinstall os because hard drive doesnt have enough space
Hi,
I was very stupidly playing around with some system files to try and get rid of some malware, when I mistakenly deleted something important.
My computer froze, and upon trying to restart I was suck at the turning gear.
I went to recovery system (cmd+r) and tried to reinstall the OS, but my hard drive doesn't have enough space...
I am currently waiting for the loading of OS X internet recovery, but I'm not sure if that will make any difference.
The only other thing I can think of is installing os X on a portable hard drive, but I'm not sure what the result of that will be.
My main question: Is there any way I can delete some files to make room for the re installation of the OS on my HD?
Thanks very much
MacBook Pro with Retina display
Posted on Nov 18, 2015 4:07 AM
Here’s an Apple Knowledgebase article showing how to install OS X on an external drive from recovery: How to install OS X on an external drive connected to your Mac - Apple Support
You can then boot your computer with this drive and then copy enough BIG files from the internal drive to the external drive so you can free up space to reinstall the OS on the internal drive.
I don’t want to preach (well, maybe I do) but if you were regularly backing up your computer with TimeMachine you could simply erase the internal drive and restore from the TimeMachine backup.
Posted on Nov 18, 2015 5:01 AM