Lost alot of space on HD

Timotheos · #1 July 29th, 2007, 01:54 AM

Hey there, I have a 12inch G4 pBook with 60GB harddrive.

I have been keeping it at about 11-14 free GB for awhile right up until yesterday when it dropped to about 4GB for no apparent reason.

The only thing out of the ordonary that I did was restart my computer (hadnt done that in awhile)

I cleaned up my HD abit, got rid of some 40-300mb .pds' and a couple of large video podcasts to get it back to about 8.5GB free. I thought maybe my laptop hadnt calculated the free space right (for some reason, if thats even possibly) after the restart so I restarted again and now its at 9.64GB.

I know I havnt used up 50GB on my computer. iTunes (11.5GB) and Applications (about5-6GB) take up most of my usage.

I have been using 'JDiskReport' to hunt down large files for about the last 1/2 year and that shows up nothing big and I have attached a screen shot from my finder to document my lack of HD usage.

The harddrive is only about 1/2 - 3/4 of a year old and my laptop hasnt had any large knocks in that time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

riccbhard · #2 July 29th, 2007, 03:34 AM

The only thing I've seen that eats up disk space like this before is logs.

Go to Applications > Utilities > Console

Check to see if any of the Logs are of abnormal size, or repeat the same error over and over again.

Especially the system log.

Timotheos · #3 July 29th, 2007, 03:45 AM

Theres quite alot of logs and they all seem fairly long. Not sure how long is healthy or how to check the file sizes of each log.

Should I just use the clear button to get rid of my logs?

Cheers

Timotheos · #4 July 29th, 2007, 05:08 AM

I used onyx to deleted logs etc. and get back up to just over 16GB of free space.

When I do 'get info' on my HD says I have used 38.99GB.
What is using up all the rest of the space? Because when I look at the size of files in that screen shot I've only used up just over 21GB. So theres atleast 17GB of spacing being used up by something I cant see.

albloom · #5 July 29th, 2007, 08:11 AM

Down the freebie TinkerTool and tell it to show
invisible and system files.

I suspect you'll see a biggie or two that way.

**fryke** · #6 July 29th, 2007, 09:34 AM

OmniDiskSweeper lets you view sizes in column view. Takes a while to calculate all the sizes, but you'll find your culprits. Paid version lets you insta-delete from within the application, in demo mode, you'll have to use the Finder or Terminal to delete stuff. The app is well worth the money.

SGilbert · #7 July 29th, 2007, 11:00 AM

A good freebie to use is WhatSize. It'll show ascending or descending files by size.

**fryke** · #8 July 29th, 2007, 11:20 AM

WhatSize basically copies Omni's application. I guess it can be a good, free alternative. I just don't understand why the selected item is always gray, regardless of my chosen highlight colour. Also, its delete-button merely puts things in the trashcan. I prefer OmniDiskSweeper all the way.