[cshuman]

I am currently running OS X.2.6 on a Beige G3 w/ Sonett 500 Mhz G4.

My first partition is 7.91 GB. Get info displays 829.6 MB of free space on the partition. The small amount of free space on the drive is causing me some problems. I have tried simply adding up all the folder sizes in the root directory of my boot volume and get the following:

Applications 1.31 GB
Library 692.6 MB
System 1.14 GB
Users 108.3 MB

Roughly = 3.2 GB of used space.

Where is all my free space?

Please help

I have done an fsck -y with no luck.

Thanks,

Chris

[Art Vandelay]

There are other, invisible folders on your drive. Also, if there are other users on your computer, you won't be able to their disk usage when logged in as you since you don't have access to their folders.

You can use Omni's OmniDiskSweeper to see where your disk space is being used up. However, you won't be able to see the space used by other users.

[benb]

This happened to me once. I attributed it to a FS error, but was unable to fix it beyond a reformat and reinstall. The space was just missing, but not anywhere, invisible folders or not.

[cshuman]

I logged in as root and did a
cd //
ls -al
and got:
drwxrwxr-x 35 admin admin 1190 Jul 20 23:06 .
drwxrwxr-x 35 admin admin 1190 Jul 20 23:06 ..
-rwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 6148 Jul 20 23:06 .DS_Store
d-wx-wx-wx 4 root staff 136 Jun 12 23:23 .Trashes
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 156 Jul 14 2002 .hidden
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 153 May 9 22:23 .mdt-stamp
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 160 Jul 20 23:04 .vol
drwxr-xr-x 56 admin admin 1904 Jul 20 22:55 Applications
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 Dec 31 1969 Cleanup At Startup
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 196096 Jul 20 22:39 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 1721218 Jul 17 20:44 Desktop DF
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 15 22:23 Desktop Folder
drwxrwxrwx 3 admin admin 102 Jul 18 14:40 Digidesign Databases
drwxrwxr-x 34 admin admin 1156 Jul 18 14:34 Library
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Apr 1 1976 Network
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 18 21:17 System
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 3 22:12 TheFindByContentFolder
drwxr-xr-x 4 admin unknown 136 May 3 21:31 TheVolumeSettingsFolder
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 8 18:13 Trash
drwxrwxr-t 6 root wheel 204 Jul 17 20:52 Users
drwxrwxrwt 5 root wheel 170 Jul 20 23:16 Volumes
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 512 Jul 21 11:52 automount
drwxr-xr-x 35 root wheel 1190 Apr 30 11:33 bin
drwxrwxrwt 2 root wheel 68 Jul 14 2002 cores
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jul 20 23:04 dev
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 etc -> private/etc
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 9 Jul 20 23:06 mach -> /mach.sym
-r--r--r-- 1 root admin 706732 Jul 20 23:05 mach.sym
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3737772 May 1 23:49 mach_kernel
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Jul 20 23:05 private
drwxr-xr-x 60 root wheel 2040 May 7 22:45 sbin
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 340 Jun 13 17:55 usr
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 var -> private/var


When I add up the 5th column and divide by 1024, I get something like 6,000 MB. Where did my other 2 gigs. go?

[chris v]

How many swapfiles do you have in private/var/vm? If there's more than 1 or 2, this would indicate that your RAM is full and your system is writing to virtual memory on your hard drive.

A re-start will clear them out if that's what it is.

Other than that, DiskWarrior will fix any directory probs that could be causing this.

CV

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by cshuman:
I logged in as root and did a
cd //
ls -al
and got:
drwxrwxr-x 35 admin admin 1190 Jul 20 23:06 .
drwxrwxr-x 35 admin admin 1190 Jul 20 23:06 ..
-rwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 6148 Jul 20 23:06 .DS_Store
d-wx-wx-wx 4 root staff 136 Jun 12 23:23 .Trashes
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 156 Jul 14 2002 .hidden
-rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 153 May 9 22:23 .mdt-stamp
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 160 Jul 20 23:04 .vol
drwxr-xr-x 56 admin admin 1904 Jul 20 22:55 Applications
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 Dec 31 1969 Cleanup At Startup
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 196096 Jul 20 22:39 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root admin 1721218 Jul 17 20:44 Desktop DF
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 15 22:23 Desktop Folder
drwxrwxrwx 3 admin admin 102 Jul 18 14:40 Digidesign Databases
drwxrwxr-x 34 admin admin 1156 Jul 18 14:34 Library
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Apr 1 1976 Network
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 18 21:17 System
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 3 22:12 TheFindByContentFolder
drwxr-xr-x 4 admin unknown 136 May 3 21:31 TheVolumeSettingsFolder
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin unknown 68 May 8 18:13 Trash
drwxrwxr-t 6 root wheel 204 Jul 17 20:52 Users
drwxrwxrwt 5 root wheel 170 Jul 20 23:16 Volumes
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 512 Jul 21 11:52 automount
drwxr-xr-x 35 root wheel 1190 Apr 30 11:33 bin
drwxrwxrwt 2 root wheel 68 Jul 14 2002 cores
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jul 20 23:04 dev
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 etc -> private/etc
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 9 Jul 20 23:06 mach -> /mach.sym
-r--r--r-- 1 root admin 706732 Jul 20 23:05 mach.sym
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3737772 May 1 23:49 mach_kernel
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Jul 20 23:05 private
drwxr-xr-x 60 root wheel 2040 May 7 22:45 sbin
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 340 Jun 13 17:55 usr
lrwxrwxr-x 1 admin admin 11 Jul 20 23:06 var -> private/var


When I add up the 5th column and divide by 1024, I get something like 6,000 MB. Where did my other 2 gigs. go?

That isn't going to get the total space. Just look at the System folder size. Do you think the kernel is bigger than the whole System folder?

Like I said earlier, use OmniDiskSweeper. You can use it for free to check space utilization, although you'll have to delete manually unless you pay.

[hkstar]

use the terminal and type "df -k" for christs' sake. That will give the real reading of how much space is left, and instantly too, no delays while finder "thinks it over"

i have this problem too. no solution after several months. It briefly returned to a correct value after a session with dw3 some time ago.

hk

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by hkstar:
use the terminal and type "df -k" for christs' sake. hk

Chill a little hk, I didn't even know that -k flag command and I use terminal often. It may tell how much free space is left, but it doesn't tell you where it is being used at.
I don't know what you mean by the Finder thinks about it for awhile. Mine instantly displays available space, on a cube no less too.

[philzilla]

Originally posted by chris v:
How many swapfiles do you have in private/var/vm? If there's more than 1 or 2, this would indicate that your RAM is full and your system is writing to virtual memory on your hard drive.

A re-start will clear them out if that's what it is.

what he said

[cshuman]

GOT IT!

A backup up attempt from Carbon Copy Cloner ended up in /Volumes. It was a total of about 3.3 Gigs.

Sorry guys. This was one of those boneheaded problems.

Thank you everyone for your help. I visit many many mac sites everyday, but when I need help I visit the most active and helpful forums around, "MacNN Reader Forums".

Thanks Again,

Chris

[bojangles]

Having the same problem on my beige G3 tower running 10.2.6. A few weeks ago, Finder said the first partition was almost full. I moved a 1GB+ folder to another partition and everything was hunky-dory until yesterday morning, when it said it couldn�t compact Mail�s folders because I didn�t have enough free space. (Finder showed 60-some-odd megs available.)

All items add up to about 6GB, even with TinkerTool showing hidden files. Swap File is on a separate 800MB UFS partition, switched with SwapSwapVM.

As of about half an hour ago, I had 96MB free. Since then, I�ve launched Safari and Calculator. When I started this message, I had 91.8MB free. Now I have 90.7MB free.

I don�t think I�ve ever used Carbon Copy Cloner, and I don�t see any rogue Volumes in the Terminal. Any other ideas?

[Arkham_c]

Code:
cd /; sudo du -sk *

That will break it up by directory. It will take a while though while it calculates.