0kb available on Startup drive

For some reason my main HD is going down to 0KB available. In the last 15 minutes I've been watching it go from 13GB down to under 2GB, and I know it will go to 0KB. It was at Okb earlier today and suddenly popped up to 13GB before it started going down again.
Any suggestions? This is making me crazy.
Thanks

Shutdown the computer. Then do the following:
Boot from your Tiger DVD. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your OS X volume from the list on the left, click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (3.0.3 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.1.1 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Similar Messages

I uninstalled a cad program I've been running for years and when I go to reinstall it says 0kb available, but in Finder the hard drive shows 80 gb. Why won't it let me install?

Cad software started having some issues so I uninstalled it and when I go to re-install, I can't get past the "select folder for installation" page. I can't browse to any other than the default applications location and at the bottom of the screen it shows 0kb available. But there is 80 gb available on the hard drive. It's an older software, but that shouldn't really matter as it's been on the machine for years. Did upgrading to Snow Leopard somehow do this (as it had many other negative effects on the software)? Software is ArchiCAD 9. I'd upgrade to current version if I had an extra $4K laying around but I don't (so please don't suggest that). Also, I'm that Administrator and I don't have problems installing other softwares. Is it possible that the installation disk from the software manufacturer can have an expiration date? Software is from about 2006.
Thanks.

I suspect the software was originally designed for PPC based Macs and is simply not designed to run on 10.6.7. I would recommend contacting the manufacturer and asking the correct way to uninstall they're application.
After uninstalling I would run Repair Disk Permissions in Disk Utility and if necessary do a SMC reset using the following instructions:
SMC RESET
• Shut down the computer.
• Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Release the power button.
• Attach the computers power cable.
• Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

Glenfern wrote:
The reason I'm considering partitioning is - I'm going to transfer about 50 GB of family photos & music to the iMac. Over time the photos & music library is going to grow. My idea was to point the iphoto & itunes library to the new partition so that the application programs (that will will reside in partition 1), will not get congested with photos & music over time & degrade performance. Also, I dabble a little bit with the music editing program LOGIC & Sound Track Pro, which creates lots of little music files in the process.
In your case I would strongly recommend against partitioning, as dwb mentions a drive loaded with data on an
O SX system doesn't equate to performance loss. However partitioning does. If you were going to tell me you were partitioning to load different OS's on the computer then you would have a good reason to think about partitioning. My suggestion is do not partition.
What I would also recommend is getting some high quality high speed external HD's to store your photo and music libraries on. This helps keept the 2GB drive available while maintaining performance. I have 3 external HD's attached to my iMac, two are backup drives (1 Time Machine & 1 Bootable Clone) the third drive is for storing my my music, photo & movie libraries on. If you go this route the 3 drives I'd recommend are:
http://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
Personally I use the Lacie's however OWC or G-Tech would also be welcome on my desk.
Again if you want to take this path Apple has instructions for how to move the libraries to EHDs, if you want those links let me know.

System memory show 0KB available. Finder will not open. How can I get access to files in order to delete them without using finder?

My friend is running OS X Yosemite. Her kid used up all the memory on minecraft/word of warcraft files. Now no app will open including Finder to even access files for deletion. Is there a way to access any apps/files to clear space without using finder?

Step 1
The first step is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
You might be able to run in safe mode even though you can't run normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.

How do I choose a default startup drive?

I have two startup drives on my Hard Drive. One is Snow Leopard and the other is Leopard. I need Leopard for some printing issues with Photoshop and Epson. How do I choose a default startup drive? Most of the time I want the Snow Leopard drive at startup but it seems to always start up on Leopard. I need to always hold down the option key at startup. Sometimes I forget.

noondaywitch wrote:
System Preferences > Startup Dive > select the drive with 10.6.x I suspect you may need to do that for both systems. Click the lock to prevent further changes, then do an option-boot and ensure it'll let you start from the other.
Macs store a reference to the default startup drive set in System Preferences > Startup Drive in PRAM, so you don't have to set it individually for each drive or partition -- as long as the selected one is available at startup time, that is the one the Mac will start up from. (Otherwise, it will be the first available one found. If none capable of starting up the Mac are found instead the flashing slashed circle with the question mark in it won't go away, indicating the Mac is still waiting for you to make one available, for instance by powering up an attached external drive or inserting a bootable DVD.)
The option key startup method temporarily overrides this & allows you to choose another drive or partition, but just for that startup -- the next time you start up normally, it will revert to the selected one.
Also, the lock in System Preferences has nothing to do with making preference settings permanent or persistent. It is just a security feature to prevent unauthorized users from making changes from an already logged in user account. For instance, it makes no difference if the lock is closed or open at startup time, because that is before the OS is running or able to check preference file settings stored on disks. During the early stages of the boot process, code resident in firmware checks for depressed keys & buttons before loading the OS from the default source set in PRAM. This is how it decides if it should instead run the Startup Manager (evoked by the option key), first eject a CD or DVD (evoked by the eject key or primary mouse button), or start up from an alternate source like an installer DVD (evoked by the C key).

Changing startup drive

I have recently upgraded my PowerMac G5 Quad to Leopard. I have also added a drive internally and set it up as a Mirrored RAID. When I tried to boot from my backup drive which is a Firewire 800 connection it rebooted as Tiger. I finally got Leopard reinstalled and erase my Firewire drive and used Time Machine to back it up in Leopard. Now when I go to System Preferences and access startup drive my Firewire drive is no longer available as a start up disk. What happened? Is there something I need to change. I erased it because I do not want to restore back to Tiger, if I need to restore I want to do it in Leopard. Any ideas. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Your Time Machine backups are on the Firewire disk now, correct?
Time Machine backups are not bootable -- they're not a "clone." They are a complex structure of multiple hard links, so Time Machine can do fast periodic "incremental" backups of what's new or changed, but have each backup be, in effect, a full backup. You can restore from them, either selectively or your entire system; if you restore your entire system from any backup, that is bootable.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Problem changing startup drive?

I have a G4/dual 533/800+RAM/OSX 10.3.9. Three internal drives: 1 with 2 sections, 1 with 5 sections (one of which is the current startup drive, and 1 unsectioned. System preferences does not recognize the remaining 4 sections of the 5-section drive or the unsectioned drive (which I would like to be the new startup drive).
In the "About this Mac" menu, all drives and sections are listed.
Functionally, the computer recognizes all the drives and sections.
I need to change the startup because I am attempting to install iLife '06 and there is not enough room on the current startup to do it.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Dennisd:
It may be that when you partitioned your partitions were not formatted as bootable drives.
However, to locate drive you want to use as a startup, from a cold start hold the Option key while you hit the power button. The desktop will come up with all the available bootable drives it finds. If it is does not, hit the refresh button (circular arrow) and see if it comes up with the drive for which you are looking. Then select the drive you want and click the directional arrow.
If your drive does not come up you need to set up your drive as a bootable drive.
Good luck.
cornelius
Pismo400, 100GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM; Pismo 500 OS (10.4.4) Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6

Error message while burning DVD with Premiere Elements 13 with Mac Book Pro i7/7200t/mn with 60GO free space available on gard drive. message: "erreur logicielle interne: DVA/premiere/elements/pre12/pre-mediacoreCS7". can someone help burn my DVD (the fil

Error message while burning DVD with Premiere Elements 13 with Mac Book Pro i7/7200t/mn with 60GO free space available on gard drive. message: "erreur logicielle interne: DVA/premiere/elements/pre12/pre-mediacoreCS7". can someone help burn my DVD (the file goes very well with chapters and scenes before burning). thanks very much, response appreciated, Alain

Using Time Machine for an external startup drive

I've never used Time Machine; I just kept on using my older backup startup drive software when starting with Leopard three years ago.
My husband is getting a new iMac with an external drive for backup because I convinced him that Time Machine is so easy to use. Yes, I have a lot of faith that Apple knows what it is doing.
However, I don't know how Time Machine works for making an external drive bootable. If it's not super easy for that purpose, I'm thinking that it might be easier to partition his external in setting things up for him, and putting SuperDuper! on one of the partitions.
What do you think? Would Time Machine all by itself be super easy if he needed to startup from the external drive? Do you have to do anything other than to hold down the option key during startup to boot from an external drive backed up by Time Machine?
He's getting an iMac with a 1T drive and an external Iomega 2TB eGo Desktop Hard Drive.
I'm assuming that his new iMac will be coming with Snow Leopard, but it hasn't arrived yet and I don't know for sure about that. But I think if it doesn't come with Snow Leopard, I'd upgrade it for him before installing anything else.
Thanks for any help!
Mary

Thanks so much to you for taking the trouble to help me learn something about Time Machine. I think I've learned enough now to get it set up for my husband without doing anything particularly stupid.
Dave, there's no chance my husband would swing for a second external drive. I had to talk him into having one at all. He's not into managing a computer and doesn't want to think about stuff like backups. Once in awhile I'm in synch with that kind of orientation too, but then I recall the times I've been overjoyed to have good backups for myself... and my backup software is extremely reliable and easy to use.
Pondidni and Thomas, thanks so much for all the links. I've spent enough time reading them that I think I've made up my mind to go with a SuperDuper! partition for the expected way to boot from the external drive. It's also a great reassurance that it would be possible to use a Time Machine backup partition for restoration via an install CD if SuperDuper! should fail, though. SuperDuper! did fail for me once, but fortunately I had another partition with a SuperDuper! backup.
If the single backup drive fails, of course, that would be a nasty inconvenience. On the other hand, at this point I doubt that the actual losses in that unlikely event would impact my husband so horribly as it might for many who have work or school-related necessities stored on their computer. This is mainly a fun computer that he has at home, and if there ever are particularly important documents that he can't afford to lose, extra backups of those files could go onto a CD, DVD, or keychain drive. The chances of needing that are pretty slim.
I know that eventually the backup drive will fail if it's used over a long enough period of time, but he seems ready to follow my advice to only even connect and turn on the external drive once a week and leave it connected only during the time it's actually actively making backups. (Unless some very important work is going on, in which case he knows to keep it connected during that period of time.) An external drive will likely last a good while longer than average under that kind of very limited use.
Thomas, I do also believe in having extra backup external drives and hope to get one for my own computer in the near future. I noticed in shopping for my husband how much less expensively you can get a large external drive now than just a few years back.
Thanks again so much to all for helping me to think through how I can help him get started with his own backups.
Best wishes,
Mary

How do I install a new startup drive

My startup drive on my Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.7.5 is full and I need to replace it with a 2T drive. How do I go about changing over the data and rebooting with the new drive?

Put the new drive into one of the empty bays.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Quit DU and boot from the Recovery HD:
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new disk drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Trying to link existing mac pro time machine backup to cloned startup drive

Hi
I have recently had to replace my startup drive on my Mac Pro as it was failing. I used SuperDuper! for this, and the clone is working fine as my new startup drive. I then went to run my next time machine backup (i backup to a time capsule), and time machine connected to the existing backup but wanted to backup everything as if backing up for the first time.
So i did a bit of researching around, and found this hint:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789
which changes the UUID registered with time machine, from the old drive to the new drive, so that it thinks that it's the old drive and carries on where it left off. i followed the instructions in the hint carefully and everything seemed to go right (i had to copy fsaclctl from an old leopard backup as it is missing in snow leopard). but when i ran the next backup again time machine wanted to backup everything.
towards the bottom of the hint, there is a comment about the UUID generated under snow leopard, as follows:
"I'm concerned that the output of xattr showed 37 hex pairs, not the 32 hex digits and dashes. By the looks -- I've forgotten all my ASCII -- it is a hex representation of the actual hex UUID (43 41 ...) and its dashes (2D), terminated with 00. That's arguably the same as the UUID, but not quite close enough to give me the warm & fuzzies"
So if anyone can help me get this working right, using the method described in the hint, or some other method, i would be very grateful. Seems like my scenario isn't that uncommon (changing a startup drive), and it baffles me that there isn't a more straightforward way to make this work.
thanks
nick

chadnchady wrote:
3. I am having troubles copying files(iphoto library) from my timemachine backup on to my imac.
That's correct. Time Machine backups retain the original ownership and permissions. So one user doesn't have access to another user's data. Usually, that's a good thing.
4. I don't need anything else except a few particular files, but everytime i try drag or copy it gives me the 'no privilege/permission error'.
Your best bet may be to use +Migration Assistant+ to migrate the user account and selected data. Then log on as that user and use/copy the data as desired. See the pink box in #19 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Mirrored Raid on Startup Drive?

Can I set up a Mirrored RAID with my Startup Drive without loosing the data?
I have a G5 Dual 1.8 running the latest OSX. I want to add a second internal HD, then setup a Mirrored RAID from my Startup Disk to my newly installed second internal drive. How do I set up this RAID without loosing anything on my startup drive? The new Drive will be the same size as my startup drive. I want the second drive as a backup startup drive.
Kevin Hawkins

Hi Kevin Hawkens;
What do you expact to gain by having a mirrored RAID?
Allan

Using MacBook Pro as startup drive?

I need to use some copy-protected apps that are on my MacBook Pro, but I want to use my Mac Pro with dual display to access those apps.
Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive? If so, how is this accomplished?
Thanks!

Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive?
Yes, if its OSX is new enough.
If so, how is this accomplished?
FireWire Target Disk Mode.
<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661>
Boot the MacBook Pro while holding the "T" key. Connect a FireWire cable between the computers. Boot the Mac Pro while holding Option, then select the MacBook Pro drive for booting.
This will have the Mac Pro running from the MacBook Pro's drive, but probably won't run the protected software if its key is based on the CPU serial number since it will be that of the Mac Pro.

No startup drive found?

Having trouble with startup drives. First one (my original startup disk) couldnt be found after a software upgrade (not sure which or what, I always accept when I am told there is one to instal). Booted from System DVD and re installed OS 10.6.8 on another drive. All was working again until moments ago when I zapped the PRam and now this drive isnt launching OS. Something is up. Anyone experience this in the last few days? I fear that if I go through the DVD install, and data transfer that this may happen again.
Thanks

Boot to the Installer DVD, but answer only the "what Language" question and wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn.
Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu.
Select your drive Mechanism (eg Hitachi...) and click "Repair Disk". Then choose the Boot Volume (Macintosh HD if you did not change it) and click "Repair Disk". Post any unresolved error message here for further assistance.
Then select the Boot Volume and click "Repair Permissions" you can safely ignore these messages unless they appear in RED.
Restart and hold down the Option key. Every bootable drive should be shown. Select the one you want and proceed.

Startup Drive has a Question Mark on it and Wheel is spinning

After I completed the installation of Leopard, my Powerbook G4 would not reboot properly. It only gets as far as showing my desktop, without any startup drives or the DVD. It is all blank. I can see information at the top of the finder. The wheel continues to spin. Because of the spinning, I can't access anything in the finder or the desktop, etc. But I am able to go down to the dashboard and open Safari, Word and my documents. But my finder on the top right continues to spin whenever I put it up there. I see many of the features of 10.5. If I leave a program open, I can access the left side of the finder. When I go to force quit, I see that the finder is not responding. I relaunch it, but then I have the same problem, the spinning wheel. Tried to shut down, but nothing, just the spinning wheel. I am able to shut it off by holding down the start up button. Help!!

Perform a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
See if you can boot into recovery.
http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
Select Disk Utility>First Aid and run Verify and Repair.
Any changes?
Ciao.

0kb available on Startup drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for