Start up disk is full

**cshironaka** · December 27th, 2009, 09:10 PM

At work I am using a Mac os 10.3.9 and I have been getting a message telling me that the start up disk is full. Usually when I delete messages from the mailbox it gives me most of my memory back, but this time it didn't. I called my server and they deleted the messages from there, but that didn't do anything either. I have about 88 MB in my memory. Does anyone know what I can do to gain the memory back? I have went and repaired permissions, but that didn't do anything for it. I am not very computer literate and right now I am at home and do not have access to the computer. Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

**MisterMe** · December 27th, 2009, 10:07 PM

Wow! If your startup disk is full, then deleting email messages will not help you much unless you received scanned images of pages from the Gutenberg Bible. Your best best is to buy an external hard drive and to move your excess files to the new drive. You get the biggest bang for the buck by moving video files. Garageband support files also take up a lot of space.

The reason that this is important is that MacOS X's virtual memory system wants 10% of your startup drive's capacity available as free space. If your internal drive is small (<100 GB), then you need to replace it with a larger drive if you don't want this to be a recurring issue.

**jbarley** · December 27th, 2009, 10:41 PM

It would appear to me that you are confusing computer memory with disk space.
Download this free app..."GrandPerSpective"
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id...andperspective
it will let you see graphically what size all your files are and how much DISK space they are using, then you can decide just what you can delete to liberate some disk space.
These files can be manipulated from within GrandPerSpectives interface
Also remember to dump the trash when you are done.

**cshironaka** · December 28th, 2009, 07:38 AM

I have not been able to download anything on that computer since the disk space is full, jbarley. We had this happen once before and when the emails were deleted our MB went up to GB (there were around 2800 emails on this account). I have deleted all the pictures and documents that I can. Another message that we get says something about our scratch disk being full. Is there a difference between start up disk and scratch disk?

I really don't know much about computers other than to turn them on and off so please forgive any confusion that I may make because of my lack of knowledge.

Thanks

**MisterMe** · December 28th, 2009, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by cshironaka

I have not been able to download anything on that computer since the disk space is full, jbarley. We had this happen once before and when the emails were deleted our MB went up to GB (there were around 2800 emails on this account). ...

The 2800 emails are most likely not your problem. If you have a lot of videos stored on your boot drive, then they contribute largely to your problem. If you have a lot of files to be removed or several large files that you want to keep, then you need to do what I told you. Get an external drive and move your large files to take drive. If you have a SuperDrive with the ability to write to DVD±R discs, you may use the optical discs as temporary storage. Moving files is not complete until you delete the files that you have moved. This means that you must empty your Trash.

Your computer will not operate properly until you take action.

One more thing: Your computer uses disc space as program memory. This is called virtual memory.

**ElDiabloConCaca** · December 28th, 2009, 08:51 AM

Yep -- I concur with MisterMe. The only way to free up space on your hard drive is to remove things from your hard drive... just like a glass that is too full of water -- the only way to make more space in the glass is to remove some water. Same with your hard drive: if it's full, you must remove some stuff. What "stuff" that may be is up to you -- large video files, pictures, music, documents, downloaded programs, etc.

**cshironaka** · December 28th, 2009, 11:47 AM

Another problem we have with mail is that it duplicates the mail that is already in the mailbox and then also we get 10-15 inbox messages that have no subject or sender at a time. For example, when I came to work this morning I had 80 some emails in the inbox, I now have 205 and 99% of those are duplicates. Does anyone have any ideas about this.

To respond to the last two comments, we do not have any videos or large files on this computer. The computer is used for a small weekly newspaper and I delete pictures and documents and empty the trash every week to make room for the new pictures and documents. As I stated before, we have had this problem once before and when we deleted the emails and emptied the trash we had no problems with the startup disk being full. I can't remember if we did anything else or not.

I appreciate all the feedback!!

**cshironaka** · December 28th, 2009, 01:31 PM

jbarley, I just downloaded Grand Perspective and I don't know what to do with info I have in front of me. On the graph that I have in front of me there is a huge green space that when I click on it this is what it says on the bottom: 1.20 GB Users/johnsonpioneer/Library/Mail/POP-rondaf@pld.com/INBOX.mbox. When it takes me to my mailbox, two windows open up and the top one is in read only and it says I have 436 messages, in the other window it says I have 216 messages in the inbox (this one is in Read Only also).