Prior to buying a new iMactel 183, I had a PowerMac G4/400. After I got the new iMactel, I gave the Pmac to my parents to try out to see if they would like a Mac. Since they were just going to use it for a couple of months, I did not reformat and reinstall the Pmac. I created a new account for them with admin privileges. After getting it setup at their house, I left it on for them when I left.
The next day when I went to install some more software, I found a dialog box with a red sign and exclamation point in it. The dialog box said that the startup disk was almost full (only 174MB left) and that if more room was not made available on the disk, the system would not be able to continue to function. I thought this was very odd since the startup disk had about 2GB of space when I dropped it off the previous day. I did a 'GetInfo' on the startup drive and sure enough, it said it only had 174MB left? I looked through the folders on the drive to see if there was something new that was taking up the extra 1.7GB since the previous day. I couldn't find anything that was taking up extra space.
Before pressing my luck, I restarted the Pmac. When it came back up, the startup drive said it had 2GB again. However, I noticed that the available space on the drive was shrinking every time I would 'GetInfo' and close and 'GetInfo' and close, etc. I wondered, "What is making the hard drive lose available space dynamically?". I thought of the possibility that a program was using up all available ram (768MB) and then moving on to the startup drive when that was consumed. I checked the 'Startup Items' for my parents login, but nothing was in there. No programs were running. I checked 'Activity Monitor', but I don't know enough about what should be running in there to catch on that anything was amiss.
Unfortunately, I was trying to show my parents how different Macs were and that they were easy to use and 'just worked' (they are currently Windows users). I have had that Pmac since 1999 and never had a problem with it. The day I give it to someone to be an ambassador of Mac goodness, then 'Whamo' - something goes wrong. What timing!
I'm hoping that some of this sounds familiar enough that suggestions can be made to help track down the problem and solve it. I would like to get their Mac experience back in good condition as soon as possible.
Thanks for your time and attention.
The next day when I went to install some more software, I found a dialog box with a red sign and exclamation point in it. The dialog box said that the startup disk was almost full (only 174MB left) and that if more room was not made available on the disk, the system would not be able to continue to function. I thought this was very odd since the startup disk had about 2GB of space when I dropped it off the previous day. I did a 'GetInfo' on the startup drive and sure enough, it said it only had 174MB left? I looked through the folders on the drive to see if there was something new that was taking up the extra 1.7GB since the previous day. I couldn't find anything that was taking up extra space.
Before pressing my luck, I restarted the Pmac. When it came back up, the startup drive said it had 2GB again. However, I noticed that the available space on the drive was shrinking every time I would 'GetInfo' and close and 'GetInfo' and close, etc. I wondered, "What is making the hard drive lose available space dynamically?". I thought of the possibility that a program was using up all available ram (768MB) and then moving on to the startup drive when that was consumed. I checked the 'Startup Items' for my parents login, but nothing was in there. No programs were running. I checked 'Activity Monitor', but I don't know enough about what should be running in there to catch on that anything was amiss.
Unfortunately, I was trying to show my parents how different Macs were and that they were easy to use and 'just worked' (they are currently Windows users). I have had that Pmac since 1999 and never had a problem with it. The day I give it to someone to be an ambassador of Mac goodness, then 'Whamo' - something goes wrong. What timing!
I'm hoping that some of this sounds familiar enough that suggestions can be made to help track down the problem and solve it. I would like to get their Mac experience back in good condition as soon as possible.
Thanks for your time and attention.
