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dzp111 · Jun 25, 2010, 01:13 AM

Trying to help a friend. She's getting the following message: " Startup disc is full", and when she goes 'Info" on the HD she gets "no information available".

Not sure what to advise her. She said that she's been thrashing a bunch of folders, but...

I guess I need more info.

?

Spheric Harlot · Jun 25, 2010, 01:42 AM

Has she just trashed them, or also emptied the trash?

jmiddel · Jun 25, 2010, 01:50 AM

This might work. Start up from an external HD with plenty of space on it. Trash whatever needs to be trashed, and empty the trash. I think that the trash will be put into the startup disk's Trash. She can't trash those folders from the internal HD because there is not enough space to move anything around.

Big Mac · Jun 25, 2010, 02:11 AM

No, the trashed items won't be moved over to the new startup disk. Each disk has its own separate Trash folder, but the user never sees them as separate.

However, starting up from another disk will definitely free up space on the main startup disk because the OS won't devote virtual memory space on the drive if it's not currently the startup drive. That will save you some number of gigabytes of space so you'll be able to clean up the drive. (Don't just put things in the Trash, you have to choose Empty Trash to gain the space back.)

Note also that I'm a little bit concerned about the health of the drive if the Finder can't read any information from it. Ensure that you have a current backup.

dzp111 · Jun 25, 2010, 03:05 PM

note: I'm trying to help her out remotely (on the phone) as she lives a few hours away. She just called to inform me that she'll be away for a week due to family stuff.

I did however have her check her disc usage in Activity Monitor. There's no space left on her hard drive, it's all used up. (60 Gig)

She says she's been deleting a slew of apps that she doesn't use such as games and what not, and that she has been emptying the trash. Still no space (not enough anyway)

She will be getting an external.

I'm hoping that by next week I'll have some recommendations for her.

Firstly, I'm aware that she'll have to format her new external. Question is, will she be able to do it given the state of her HD? Maybe in Safe Boot?

If so, then what?

I also intend to recommend her to purchase CleanApp or something of the sort.

Thank you all.

jmiddel · Jun 26, 2010, 07:58 PM

No, she probably won't be able to format from the internal HD. She can boot from the original install disk, go to Utilities in the menu, and choose DiskUtility, from where she can format the external. Then she can install the OS on the external, restart from that, and do a Migration assistant from the internal to the new drive, which will be a lot bigger. Now she has the choice, if she wants, to pair down the external, to at most 50Gigs, and clone the external back to the internal. Another option would be to partition the external, with one doing what I just said, the other for storing stuff she may want to keep, but which is too much for the internal. Hopefully she can replace the latter, storage is never been so cheap!

Cold Warrior · Jun 26, 2010, 08:19 PM

Does she want to put the boot system on the external or just a lot of media, music, etc?

dzp111 · Jun 26, 2010, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior

Does she want to put the boot system on the external or just a lot of media, music, etc?

Both, which is what I'll recommend. I also have a 60 Gig internal with a 500 Gig external. It's a no brainer. Clone on one partition and the rest, well, lots of room..

@jmiddel -that will work! Thanks.

Cold Warrior · Jun 26, 2010, 10:57 PM

Her internal drive is likely faster, so she'll take a noticeable performance hit. It might be better to move the space hogs to the external and leave the OS and applications on the internal drive.

Or just spring for a 500+ GB internal.

Tuoder · Jun 27, 2010, 01:16 AM

If she can download an app to a flash drive or something, I'd recommend getting apiece of software called Disk Inventory X:

Disk Inventory X

It will take a few minutes to scan the hard drive, and produce a picture visualizing what is taking up all of the space. This will help her quite a bit in figuring out what is hogging all of the space.

dzp111 · Jun 27, 2010, 02:07 AM

Disk Inventory X is an awesome app which I myself use now and then. But in her case she can't download nil. She can't even Skype (one of her favourites). She's "stuck in the mud".

I truly appreciate your advices. I think I'm getting somewhere.

As of yet, it seems that startup with original disk, format external with Carbon Copy Cloner using Disc Utilities, clone, copy crap in external extra space then start over with clone without crap?

Something like that?

(few beers)

: )

Tuoder · Jun 27, 2010, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by dzp111

Disk Inventory X is an awesome app which I myself use now and then. But in her case she can't download nil. She can't even Skype (one of her favourites). She's "stuck in the mud".

I truly appreciate your advices. I think I'm getting somewhere.

As of yet, it seems that startup with original disk, format external with Carbon Copy Cloner using Disc Utilities, clone, copy crap in external extra space then start over with clone without crap?

Something like that?

(few beers)

: )

If it were me, I'd buy a bigger drive and an enclosure, clone to the new drive, then swap the drives. I'm guessing she doesn't have the expertise (or curiosity and lack of fear) to do so herself.

Cloning to an external and then booting to that would work, but it is less than ideal.