Lost Space on Hard Drive

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9 points

Lost Space on Hard Drive

I purchased my Mac with a 1TB hard drive. A while back, I decided to partition that drive, basically in half to have two separate work drives. Well, Disk Utility is saying that the hard drive has 1.3 TB but in actuality, there is only about have that. Its saying that the hard drive is only 500+ GB. No sign of the other 500GB. When I click on the main drive it says 1 TB but when I click on the actually drive, it's saying it's has 514 GB. Has anyone else had this problem. I'm missing out on half my hard drive. I have backed up the info currently on the drive through Time Machine and want to reformat the hard drive but it won't let me do that. The "erase" icon is grayed out in Disk Utility. Help! Thanks!

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017), iOS 11.4.1, 1 TB Hard Drive

Posted on Aug 2, 2018 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

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chillyinak Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 4, 2018 2:18 PM in response to sme3750

Shaun,

After trying all of your recommendatios (thanks again, BTW), what I decided to do, since nothing else worked, I said I would bit the bullet and try to partition the only drive I could see which was 512 GB from my original HD of 1 TB, i figured since I’d backed it up with TM, I was good to go. So, while in the Recovery Mode, and trying to partition the 512 GB HD, the screen indicated that I had 1.03 TB and how did I want it partitioned. In shock of course, I froze and wasn’t sure I actually wanted to partitIon it. So I thought about it for a few and decided canceled the partition since that was the 1st problem. I was also wondering if it would go back to the 512 GB indication. I didn’t and it remained indicating that I had 1.03 TB on the HD. That also meant that all my data was gone since I had the 512 GB before. At this point I did a restore from Disk Utilities all while in the recovery mode. All said, the restore from TM put 360 GB and said I had 640 GB of free space. Yippee!!! However, where is the rest of the original data of approximately 140 GB you ask? I honest didnt care at this point. The computer is running smoothly, I now have my full 1 TB hard drive back, I’m good! I guess if there is a lesson learned from this for me is, when you decide to partition a hard drive, make sure you read up on it and make sure it is what you really want to do. It could effect quite a few things if you aren’t careful. Measure twice, cut once!

Thanks for all of the help and comments!

Chillyinak

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Answer 2

sme3750

Level 1

69 points

Aug 3, 2018 12:43 PM in response to chillyinak

Hey Chillyinak

Daisy Disk will not help you erase your disk. It helps you visualize your disk to see where large files could be hiding. A lot of times people ask me what's taking up so much room on my disk and I end up finding large photo files or movies two or three level deep in the user folder instead of them being in there pictures or movies folder. At the end of the day, they didn't realize those files were there or how they got there.

You can try the link the below it walks you through deleting and merging your partitions. If you have everything backed up with Time Machine or some other backup software you might reboot the computer, so you start fresh with no problems. If you can't delete and merge the drive (first link) this will be your next step to reinstall. The second link will walk you through reinstall macOS. This will erase your hard drive completely. Just in case backup before you do anything even if you just merge the drives. You never know what kind of hiccups you encounter when messing with your startup disk.

How to delete and merge partitions on Mac hard drive

About macOS Recovery - Apple Support

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Answer 3

sme3750

Level 1

69 points

Aug 2, 2018 6:02 PM in response to chillyinak

Try using an app call Daisy Disk, it's on the app store. It has a really good user interface and will show you where large files are hiding on your system. If your not worried about the info that could be in there you could always reboot your computer since you have it backup up with Time Machine. The reason why the erase icon is grayed out is beacuse its part of your system startup disk. You have to enter Disk Utility from the recovery menu to be able to erase it. Be very careful this will probably require you to reboot your entire system and reinstall macOS because you are deleting part of the startup disk. To enter the recovery partition hold down command R when you see the Apple logo.

Shaun

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Answer 4

chillyinak Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 3, 2018 12:09 PM in response to sme3750

Hey sme3750,

I did download DaisyDisk but it didn’t help with erasing the disk. Erase is still grayed our, even in Recovery mode. I also started the computer in the recovery mode (command R) and started up Disk Utility but it still wouldn’t let me erase the disk. So frustrating! Any other suggestions? Really appreciate the feedback. It’s still showing that my hard drive has 1.03 TB of space on the main drive but only shows 512 GB when I open the OX Base drive. The drive that I can see says I have 150 gb of 512 gb left. I’m missing about 500 gb that I just can’t find. Somebody please help!

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Answer 5

chillyinak Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 3, 2018 3:34 PM in response to sme3750

SME3750

Totally appreciate the help. One thing I did want to mention, when I used DaisyDisk, it only shows one disk in the partition section and that disk is listed at 512 GB, nothing else other than my other external hard drives. I can't merge the partition because it's only showing one disk showing which is the original partition. Still, it's not showing the other 508 GB at all. Looks like I'm going to have to erase/reformat the whole disk. Regarding Delete and Merge Partitions, it's only showing one drive so I can't delete "the other partition" because it's not listed another one. I hope this makes sense. I'm going to create a boot disk and try and go from there. Again, the system is saying that I have a 1TB hard drive (which was how the computer came), but it's just not showing up any where. Kind of confusing, I know but I'll keep trying. Can't thank you enough for all the help so far.

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Answer 6

chillyinak Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 3, 2018 3:37 PM in response to sme3750

Shaun,

Here is what the system says,

Volume name : Macintosh HD

Volume type : CoreStorage Logical Volume Group

Connection : SATA

Writable : No

Is case-sensitive : No

Volume capacity : 1,026,896,293,888

Available space (Purgeable + Free) : 512,665,341,952

Purgeable space : 0

Free space : 512,665,341,952. Here is what's missing

Used space : 514,230,951,936

Owners enabled : No

Is encrypted : No

Can be verified : No

Can be repaired : No

Hope this helps

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Answer 7

sme3750

Level 1

69 points

Aug 4, 2018 12:15 PM in response to chillyinak

Hey chillyinak,

Sorry for the late reply, Sounds like the best option for you is to just reinstall of MacOS. One thing I never ask you was what OS version are you running currently and what OS version were you running at the time when you partitioned the hard drive. I did a bit a research and read that the older versions of MacOS would not allow you to merge two partitions if one of the partitions was your startup disk. In later versions of MacOS, this changed and you could merge the partitions. What I was wonder is did you have an old version when you partitioned the drive and upgraded the MacOS on your startup partition over the years. I had a similar problem a few years back when I was in college I had a partitioned drive with Windows install for a software development class. Well, I keep the partition thru college thinking I might need Windows again for something. I ended up reinstalling MacOS because I could get rid of the window partition without reformating the drive.

Hope you figured it out.

Shaun

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Lost Space on Hard Drive

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