Lost alot of space on HD

T

Timotheos

Registered
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
 

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

I suspect you'll see a biggie or two that way.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Thanks for the apps guys!

Heres a screen shot of my file sizes, nothing seems too wrong except those files add up to about 33gb when everything else tells me I've used 39gb, so theres 6gb still missing.

6gigs isnt too bad I guess (unless there is something wrong in the screen shot) or unless I can do something else to find my other 6gigs.

Cheers
 

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You could check to see if there is anything grossly wrong with the disk directory, by repairing the disk through Disk Utility. Best way to do this is to boot to your restore DVD, and run the Disk Utility from the menu (probably the Utilities menu). Choose your drive, and click on the Repair Disk button.
If the Finder reports that you are using about 39GB of space on the hard drive, and you also still show about 16GB free, then that's just about correct, as your 60GB drive will have a little less than 56GB capacity. My 60GB drive shows 55.76 GB capacity (and 21.71 GB used with 34.05 GB available) - adds up very nicely. If you want the total to be 60 GB, you can't ever get that...
 
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