Where's my HD space gone?

[red_rivers]

Hi everyone, hope you can give me a hand with this long standing error with my MacBook Pro?

My Mac (MBP 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 100GB HD (partition 60GB OSX 30GB Windows)) has been cleaned up a few times and I no longer store music, photo, video or docs (some) on my startup disk.

I can probably understand about 15GB being taken up but I cannot work out where the other 30GB+ have gone (works out as 11gb apps, 3gb doc folder and desktop). I am using Disk Inventory X but it is very muddled and all over the place not giving me a clear indication. I have worked out that Application Support is taking up 5.5GB and Printers is taking up 3.5GB. I have deleted Garageband and all loops but still loads taken up. Want to install CS4 without deleting CS3 so can make sure it works before I delete?

So my questions are.......
What methods are out there for me to troubleshoot where the space is being taken up?
On a standard machine how much space should system/library files take up?
What is safe to delete and won't leave my mac useless?

I look forward to any responses thank you.

Rivers

 

[Randy Singer]

You can try this program for an overview of what is on your hard drive and what is taking up so much space:

GrandPerspective (free)
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

If you don't have much on your drive, yet your drive is indicating that it is filled with something, I would look for a log file that has ballooned.

You can often temporarily reclaim the lost space by running:

YASU (free, donation requested)
http://jimmitchelldesign.com/projects/yasu/
and having YASU clear all of your logs and caches, and run OS X's built-in routine maintenance scripts.

(Other possibilities: iDisk Syncing is out of control, or a false clone
or backup is being written to the local drive.)