[alligator]

I have a second hard drive for video editing, and it says (using "Get Info") that I only have 33 GB remaining on the disk. I only have six folders on the disk, and they total 31 GB. This means I'm missing 80+ GB of free space. Where did it go? It's a 120 GB drive.

I tried disk repair, and it didn't help. It tells me there are 4,004 folders on that drive and I know there are only 6!

How can I get my free space back???? It's not the main drive I boot from, just a backup drive.

[Developer]

Look at it using OmniDiskSweeper. What are the results of that procedure?

[andrew davidoff]

did it just all of a sudden stop reporting correctly?

might also want to make sure it's not just the finder being weird...open a terminal and type

df -k

andrew davidoff

[Moonray]

... and look for hidden folders and files.

-

[alligator]

The space has been missing for a while. OmniDiskSweeper didn't find any big files (enough to justify the usage amount listed). Here is the result of df -k (whatever that is):

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk1s9 156277884 99393492 56628392 64% /
devfs 95 95 0 100% /dev
fdesc 1 1 0 100% /dev
<volfs> 512 512 0 100% /.vol
automount -nsl [327] 0 0 0 100% /Network
automount -fstab [334] 0 0 0 100% /automount/Servers
automount -static [334] 0 0 0 100% /automount/static
/dev/disk2s1 500192 82008 418184 16% /Volumes/LEXAR MEDIA
/dev/disk0s2 120050960 85473764 34577196 71% /Volumes/Video HD


Where did the space go?????? I need it back today!

[andrew davidoff]

Originally posted by alligator:
120050960 85473764 34577196 71% /Volumes/Video HD

this is your 120gb drive.

120050960 = total space in kilobytes
85473764 = space used in kilobytes
34577196 = space free in kilobytes

71% = disk is 71% full

/Volumes/Video HD = mount point

since you say there are only two folders, i'd open that terminal again and

cd "/Volumes/Video HD" (make sure you use the quotes)

then do

ls -al

which will show files including hidden ones (those that begin with a dot ".") and their size in bytes. you can also do ls -alh which will show the sizes in "human readable" format. might be easier on you and close enough for the purposes here...

do that in each folder and you might find very large hidden files or hidden directories even. you do a lot of video editing? perhaps a program made hidden dirs where it stores temporary files and either a bug or a system crashe caused it to not clean up correctly. like undo files, things like that.

just an idea.

andrew davidoff

[alligator]

I solved the problem. It was as simple as emptying the trash can. I never figured that it would affect my free space if it was sitting in the trash. I guess because I'm new to Macs I overlooked this.

Thanks for the help!

[andrew davidoff]

Originally posted by alligator:
I solved the problem. It was as simple as emptying the trash can. I never figured that it would affect my free space if it was sitting in the trash. I guess because I'm new to Macs I overlooked this.

Thanks for the help!

if the file exists, the file exists, period. the trash can is just a special folder. all that happens when you put something in the trash is that it is moved to the trash folder from which you can retrieve it later.

it's the same as if you made your own folder called "maybe i'll delete this stuff" and moved stuff there, instead of the trash, whenever you deleted an item. not until you actually emptied this folder by deleting the items in it (ie: emptying the trash) would you regain disk space.

this is the same behavior as the recycle bin in windows.

andrew davidoff