running out of disk space

foehn

Registered
i have a 12" iBook (700MHz/20GB/256MB/Combo) and the logic board has been replaced for the third time already (yes- sucks!). i've been having problems after the third replacement...

i have a 20GB hard drive, and have about 1.5-2GB of free disk space. well, now.... everytime i use the computer, for some reason that space seems to be auto-consuming!! i.e., when i turn on the computer, it has 1.5GB free..... then it starts decreasing..... until i get these warnings that say that i'm running out of space. for example, when i check the HD it says that i have 900MB.... then 600MB.... and it keeps decreasing until i have 0KB left. and of course, all my applications start screwing up because of this problem.

like i said, this is happening right after a third logic board replacement, and there is no apparent reason. i even freed some space from the HD- and it's still happening. i also tried verifying/repairing disk permissions..... i deleted my p2p software, just in case......... deleted some other applications, and yes, i can free some space, but then the whole thing starts again until i have no space left.

apple apparently have no idea of what's going on......... any thoughts??

i would really really REALLY appreciate your help. i'm about to throw my computer from my apartment!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thank you guys.
 
thank u. will try to free more space, but i did free some space already.... and i still received the warnings.................. the thing that worries me is that this started happening in february, after my third logic board replacement. before that the computer was working fine. any explanation for that?
 
You can download a trial of OmniDiskSweeper which will tell you all the files on the drive. You could have a build up of log files.

If you installed iShockX driver, and then updated your OS to 10.3.8, a bug in the iShockX driver will continuously write to your logs until your drives are completely full.

Start up in "single-user mode" by holding down the Command (Apple) key and the S key after you hear the chime. You will end up at a text-mode command prompt.
At that prompt, issue the command:
tail -100 /var/log/system.log

You can look throug and see what's filling up.

To get out out Single User Mode, type - exit
 
Hmm. The whole logic board connection has me confused. It sounds to me (logic board issue aside) that you have a buggy program running that's leaking memory like there's no tomorrow, and thus filling up your hard disk with virtual memory partitions. Any recent installations or changes in your workflow that might fit with this theory?

Also, which version of OS X are you running? If it's Tiger, it could also be that Spotlight's indexing has gone haywire. It's been known to happen. If you're running Tiger, try disabling Spotlight (open the Spotlight preference pane, click the Privacy tab, and add your startup disk to the list; there are also some Terminal tricks if this doesn't work, but I think it should).

Note: if turning off Spotlight does help, you should be able to turn it back on after a while and not get the same problem. It's just that sometimes Spotlight needs a kick in the pants to work properly.
 
i'm assuming it has something to do with the logic board being replaced for a third time... i am using the same applications/software that i've been using for a while, and only started to have problems right after i got my iBook back.
 
bobw said:
If you installed iShockX driver, and then updated your OS to 10.3.8, a bug in the iShockX driver will continuously write to your logs until your drives are completely full.
Bob, any idea about Tiger?
 
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