# startup disk is full



## pbannanjr (Jan 4, 2010)

my computer is saying that the startup disk is full but i already put my files on an external hard-drive and deleted them...
is there a way to defrag or optimize the computer?
any help would be appreciated.


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## MisterMe (Jan 4, 2010)

pbannanjr said:


> ... is there a way to defrag or optimize the computer?
> any help would be appreciated.


Yes, but it is unnecessary.


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## earthsaver (Jan 4, 2010)

Did you empty the Trash? How much hard disk space is free according to the Finder?


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## pbannanjr (Jan 5, 2010)

if defragging is unnecessary then how come after deleting everything my startup disk is still full?
yes, i've emptied the trash. 
capacity 55.77 GB, available 51.6 MB, used 55.71 GB
thanks.


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## MisterMe (Jan 5, 2010)

File fragmentation has absolutely nothing to do with the reported consumption of your hard drive capacity. We have no way of knowing how much space the files that you delete occupied. That said, it has been my observation that the MacOS X Finder does not necessarily accurately display the space occupied by the files on your drive. Log off and then log back on to see if that makes a difference.


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## Giaguara (Jan 7, 2010)

The system drive of a Mac OS X system should have always at least 15 % of free space (no matter what size drive) for the system to be able to keep itself clean and self maintained. 
On the 60 GB drive that would translate to 9 GB free space. 51.6 MB is far from that. You will need more. 10 % is minimum, 15 % is better. So even with 10 % you'd have to get to 6 GB free.

Empty the trash.
Save something you don't need on daily use to an external drive (movies? documents? stuff from your downloads?). Delete what you don't need (but delete nothing from the system or libraries themselves).

What Mac do you have? It would probably be a good idea to get a bigger hard drive, change that to your Mac, and then use the old hard drive with an external closure as a small portable drive (if you'll need one.. well - never hurts to have one. Especially the laptop hard drives are useful this way, and external closures are cheap).


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## alking (Jan 14, 2010)

I have just posted similar problem to "Ask a Tech"  When I delete a file on my MBP 17 OSX 10.6 the space is not retrieved according to "get info" I have tried several things including erase empty space using disk utility but  I can not find a way to recalculate and reclaim free space on a HD once used.


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## icemanjc (Jan 15, 2010)

Well you could simply look in the root directory of your hard drive, and get info on all the folders and tell us which one is taking up all the space.


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## alking (Jan 15, 2010)

icemanjc---  That is just the point.  I DID look at the root and as you say, and added up the used space but the OS still considers the space used so it will not access it.


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## icemanjc (Jan 15, 2010)

alking said:


> icemanjc---  That is just the point.  I DID look at the root and as you say, and added up the used space but the OS still considers the space used so it will not access it.



Do you know how to view hidden files?

If not, read this. Then do the same thing with your root directory.


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## earthsaver (Jan 15, 2010)

Viewing hidden files isn't really necessary. Just use OmniDiskSweeper to read your hard disk.


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## fryke (Jan 15, 2010)

Even if OmniDiskSweeper (which I've been highly recommending for years) does the job and finds lots of stuff you can erase and free up HD space, this still doesn't explain why the Finder doesn't manage to reclaim HD space. If you delete 500 MB of files and empty the trash, the Finder should show 500 MB more free HD space.

Of course once the HD is *SO* full, the system is constantly running amok, and this has to be kept in mind. Since the system tries to write virtual memory (and can't, because the HD is basically full), you erasing 500 MB will simply lead to the system taking over that space with VM and you'll see that your HD continues to be more or less full. You'll have to erase GIGABYTES before noticing a real effect.

As Giaguara said: Keep 15% (or 10% or 20%) of HD space free at all times. The more the better. Of my MacBook Air's 80 GB of HD space, I have 25 GB free at the moment, and I don't intend to fill it up more, rather I'm going to erase a couple of gigabytes. Mind me: I have tons of GB I *could* put on the MacBook Air, but in order for it to remain a quick little machine, the harddrive needs its space freed up.

If you let the HD get filled up, you're simply _asking_ for problems.


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## earthsaver (Jan 15, 2010)

Speaking of virtual memory, have you checked to see how much space it's currently taking up? (in /var/vm).


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## acronym (Jun 11, 2010)

My computer is doing something similar.  i let the disk fill up (199GB of 200) and now it tries to boot, gets to the apple logo and spinwheel, then shuts down. windows partition is spared, but mac osx 10.5.8 won't/can't boot.  How do i recover data/get it to boot now?!

thanks much for the replies!


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