[mattmac]

I've just had a desperate call from my sister who is unable to find any space on her hard drive (8500 with G3/400 card. She has removed plenty of files, but there is still very little space available.

Adding up the sizes of the folders on the drives amounts to nowhere near the amount that the Finder states is being used on the drive.

What the hell's going on? Help!!!!!

[zac4mac]

Check memory CP, turn Virtual Memory off and see if you get your space back when you restart... rebuild the desktop when you restart with VM off, then check size. Another possibility is dying sectors on the HD, but not as likely.

Did she check for invisibles? (using the Custom button on Sherlock, or holding Option in "more options" on the old Find utility. Or get FileBuddy)
What about the TemporaryItems Folder, also invisible, regulary sizable and a pain to get rid of in Sys 9. There is a freeware piece called AutoPurge that will take care of it. I recommend placing it in the Startup Items Folder.
Good luck

[mattmac]

sorry to be a pain, but I'm tired and it's just gone midnight over here - remind me the keys to hols down to rebuild the desktop on startup! Cheers!

[drewman]

Command and option before the hard drive mounts on the desktop. If succsssful it will ask you if you want to rebuild the deskop.

drewman

[mattmac]

Thanks, everyone - it worked a treat! Problem solved.