[Scarpa]

I have a G4 Powerbook with a 40GB hard drive in it.

The Finder and df report that only 10GB is free, but when I add up the folders on my hard drive (viewed in Finder) it only totals about 15GB. So I'm missing another 15GB or so and I can't seem to figure out a good way to find what's using up all that space.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I just saw the hint on www.macosxhints.com about the hidden /cores directory but that is empty. I just downloaded the FileBuddy demo but I can't figure out what it can do for me.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[chromos]

Get DiskWarrior. You probably have orphan files that aren't showing up in the directory (df won't see them either). The Backup 2 beta program did this to me recently and DW3 fixed it right up!

[Scarpa]

Hmm.. thanks for the recommendation but for 80 bucks I think I'll just format and reinstall.

Edit: I took a closer look at the df output using 1K units and it does show 28GB in use. So it sounds like DW wouldn't even help me after all. What I'm really looking for is something akin to "treesize" on Windows, that will let me browse the directory while calculating folder sizes. Finder seems like it would work except it hides all kinds of stuff from me...

[keston]

Turn on calculate folder sizes in list view, and go through your disk from the root, it will show what is eating up space, or make it easier to determine

[Dex13]

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7402

Omni Disk Sweeper, It detects everything, giving you file sizes, and lets you delete stuff via app, even if owned by root.

[SupahCoolX]

Just some suggestions:
You can highlight any folder/icon/file/drive and press Command-Option-i
That will bring up the inspector window. It's like Get Info, but it stays onscreen and updates its contents to show the info about the currently selected file/folder/whatever. So, leave the inspector on the side, and just click/arrow your way around anything you're curious about to see file sizes.

Also, go to www.versiontracker.com and get DeLocalizer. It will delete any foreign language files that you don't need, potentially saving hundreds of MBs.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by Dex13:


Omni Disk Sweeper, It detects everything, giving you file sizes, and lets you delete stuff via app, even if owned by root.

Omni Disk Sweeper is pretty nice. You can't use the delete button until you register. The program costs $15, but Omni does have free, one day expiring licenses so you could get one of those to use the program to delete any large files.

[barbarian]

or you could use disk sweeper to find the files and then manually delete them...

----

Other suggestions:

1. turn on tinker tool to show invisible files... see if you have anything hidden on there.

2. start using command s and enter the fsck -y command until there are no errors and then reboot.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

First trash all the extra printer drivers as they are hundreds of megs.

Then delete the extra language packs.

[Scarpa]

Ok, I'm still stumped by this.

I downloaded and ran the demo of Omni DiskSweeper, which was excellent. I scanned my hard drive and it came up with 16GB in use. However, in Finder it reports only 12GB free. 16GB + 12GB = 28GB. I have a 40GD drive, so I'm still missing about 10GB.

Get Info on my HD shows 25GB on disk, about 9GB higher than what Omni DiskSweeper can find. I'm still investigating.. any tips are still appreciated.

[Eriamjh]

Run "Delocalizer" and save 500MB (if you use english).

[bergy]

Originally posted by Scarpa:
Ok, I'm still stumped by this.

I downloaded and ran the demo of Omni DiskSweeper, which was excellent. I scanned my hard drive and it came up with 16GB in use. However, in Finder it reports only 12GB free. 16GB + 12GB = 28GB. I have a 40GD drive, so I'm still missing about 10GB.

Get Info on my HD shows 25GB on disk, about 9GB higher than what Omni DiskSweeper can find. I'm still investigating.. any tips are still appreciated.

I don't know if this can help, but you may have noticed another thread on this forum "One Last Memory Question" . That was me. I had the same problem ... I seemed to be missing a bunch of hard disk space.

The Clincher for me is that I had 4 accounts ...
OmniSweeper , WhatSize and even calculating folders only gave me the hard disk being used by the open account. It will not give you for instance all the music in an other accounts Itunes folder for example. If you do a get info on your hard drive icon .. go to users and follow another user account you will see that it does not have access to these folders even for calculation sizes

I found this out by calling AppleCare. I booted into 9 and was able to calculate user folder sizes from there. I didn't have time to check but perhaps changing the user accounts to all having administrative rights would rectify that problem.

[ryaxnb]

Tell the Finder to quit hiding files on you with TinkerTool.

[jbhopper]

Try Delocalizing your Apps and System.

[Scarpa]

DeLocalizer recovered 300MB of space, which surprised me because I remember installing Jaguar without the localization files. Maybe I missed some.

I think Bergy hit the nail on the head though. I share this computer with a co-worker, who uses it exclusively for video editing with FCE. I can easily imagine 10GB dissapearing into his home folder, which currently shows 44k in use. He's out sick today, but when he gets back I'll have him log in and see what the size of his home drive is.

Thanks for all the help, I got some good tips about how to audit drive space. It's just too bad I can't see into other user's folders with anything.

[Scarpa]

For closure, it was the co-worker's Home drive. He had an 11GB FCE Documents folder in there. Case closed, again thanks for the help.