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ibook_steve · Apr 29, 2013, 01:10 PM

This is really weird. I was in Boot Camp and then rebooted back in to Mac OS X ML. I know that I have about 250 GB free space on the disk. But Finder windows (including Get Info windows) are reporting about 360 GB free! However, every application I've tried that reports free disk space (Disk Utility, GrandPerspective, OmniDiskSweep) all report the 250 GB that I know I have.

The only thing I can think of was that before I switched over to BC, I ran a virtual disk compression on my Parallels VM, but that should have only freed something like 10 or 20 GB. And it still doesn't explain the free space mismatch.

I'm going to try rebooting again to see if that does anything.

Thoughts?

Steve

ibook_steve · Apr 29, 2013, 01:15 PM

Rebooting didn't do anything. Still reports over 100 GB more free disk space than I know I have.

Steve

reader50 · Apr 29, 2013, 02:01 PM

Run Disk Utility or Disk Warrior. Your volume header info may be damaged.

ibook_steve · Apr 29, 2013, 02:18 PM

Disk Utility found nothing to repair, but the Finder still shows the wrong number.

Steve

mattyb · Apr 29, 2013, 05:56 PM

Stuff in the bin?

ibook_steve · Apr 29, 2013, 06:11 PM

Not 100 GB worth. And even so, that would have the opposite affect I would think: less space available.

Steve

Ω · Apr 30, 2013, 03:38 AM

Any consolation I have 4294964941 messages in my .mac inbox at the moment. Now its 4294964701.

No idea about your problem though!

P · Apr 30, 2013, 08:58 AM

Not to alarm you or anything, but...you have recent backups, right? Because this sounds like something freaky with the allocation file.

ibook_steve · Apr 30, 2013, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by P

Not to alarm you or anything, but...you have recent backups, right? Because this sounds like something freaky with the allocation file.

Hmm. How can I confirm this? Does that mean the drive is dying?

Steve

reader50 · Apr 30, 2013, 05:57 PM

I'd be surprised if the HD were having issues. This began under very specific circumstances, after running a utility that can affect disk space.

In Disk Utility, select the hard drive icon, not the volume "Mac HD" icon below it. Selecting the hardware icon will run tests on all volumes (partitions) on that device, as well as checking out the partition table. So it checks a few more things than the volume alone.

Do you have another disk to boot from, even an OS X install DVD? It would be interesting to examine the drive from outside, including the partitioning. Check the partition size(s) vs the hardware info. See if the different data points all agree, and if not, which one(s) are showing the extra info.

ps - is this a Fusion drive? A Fusion drive of an HD + 120 GB SSD will report an overall size 120 GB bigger than the HD ...

ibook_steve · Apr 30, 2013, 08:32 PM

Well, this is not a Fusion drive, but it is my old 750 GB drive that I symlinked some folders to from my new 250 GB SSD (see my thread in the portables forum). But I could have sworn that it showed the correct 250 GB free up to a few days ago, well after I added the symlinks.

I'll try DU of the whole drive tonight.

Steve

ibook_steve · May 1, 2013, 03:53 AM

So bizarre. It worked. The free space reported by the Finder is now correct. I've never seen anything like that before. Should I be concerned about the drive at all?

Thanks!

Steve

P · May 2, 2013, 05:09 AM

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

So bizarre. It worked. The free space reported by the Finder is now correct. I've never seen anything like that before. Should I be concerned about the drive at all?

Thanks!

Steve

That...implies the partition map somehow. Very odd, never saw that before.

I would keep backups up to date as a matter of good practice, but unless SMART tells you something is freaky, I wouldn't replace the drive.