Hiya! I've come to beg for help from people less ignorant than myself...
I'm using a Powermac G5 on OSX version 10.3.9. A few hours ago, my mac started bringing up the "Startup disk too full" message when I was using photoshop. The part that has me stumped is that only a third of my mac's capacity is being used!:sad:
Does anyone know what could be causing this?
ViolentCloud
0
Newbie Poster
Recommended Answers
Jump to PostI don't know enough about your Mac to really know, but from the sounds of it you have more than 1 partition on your hard drive. You're probably booting from one, and that's the one that is full.
One way to tell for sure is to open up System …
Jump to PostSo then you obviously have 1 partition. That's useful to know.
Have you tried emptying the trash bin? Did it make a difference? If not, I suggest what I described in the previous post, ie. reformat drive and reinstall to reorganize disk. If you use and manage large files, …
All 5 Replies
John A
1,896
Vampirical Lurker
Team Colleague
I don't know enough about your Mac to really know, but from the sounds of it you have more than 1 partition on your hard drive. You're probably booting from one, and that's the one that is full.
One way to tell for sure is to open up System Preferences, and look at the number of items listed. One should be Mac OS X, and the other should be a network boot. If there's more listed, then you've got more than 1 partition on your hard drive.
What to do about it? I would suggest opening up the Finder and looking for a second drive. Copy the majority of your files onto your main partition.
A second possibility if you only have 1 partition is that your hard drive is corrupt or Mac OS X is reporting the amount of freespace incorrectly. The best thing you could do in this case is to back up your data and do a reformat/reinstall. (One thing to try first though: empty the trash bin; a lot of large files can hide in there.)
ViolentCloud
0
Newbie Poster
Well... when I select Startup Disk from System Preferences, it lists "Mac OS X 10.3.9 on Macintosh HD" and "Network Startup". Is that info any use?
John A
1,896
Vampirical Lurker
Team Colleague
So then you obviously have 1 partition. That's useful to know.
Have you tried emptying the trash bin? Did it make a difference? If not, I suggest what I described in the previous post, ie. reformat drive and reinstall to reorganize disk. If you use and manage large files, the hard drive can quickly (or more quickly than normal) fragment and scramble.
ViolentCloud
0
Newbie Poster
Yeah, I empty the trash bin a little *too* often sometimes, so I'll try your advice out. Thanks for the help!
angelina_k
0
Newbie Poster
Please let me know whether you have found the solution to this - i have the exact same problem with my ibook G4 - tried everything too. It's becoming quite frustrating. Please let me know. Thanxs
Be a part of the DaniWeb community
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.