Cleaning Hard Drive

Hello,
I am currently doing a "spring clean" of my MBP. Having upgraded to Aperture from iPhoto I have deleted the iPhoto library and freed up some space.
I used to run a program called WhatSize but it no longer works. Is there any other way of finding out whats using up valuable space.
System Information states the following:
105GB free out of 499GB (although finder suggests 175GB is available) broken down as follows
Audio - 79GB
Movies - 45
Photos - 86
Apps - 10
Backups - 67
Other - 102
Is there any way I can find out what backups and other is? The rest I can manage fine.
Cheers!

You may download fro the Internet OmniDiskSweeper (free) and open it. It will show all of you files and the respective sizes.
I assume you are using Lion. Backups are 'snapshots' taken for Time Machine. They will drop of if disk space is necessary for other items, so do not be alarmed. Other is simply what is not in the categories that you have listed. (ex. The OS, applications, system files,etc.)
You may find the following useful:
http://pondini.org/TM/30.html
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
Ciao.

Similar Messages

Clean hard drive before selling; how do i get mountain lion on a disk for re-install?

Hope to resell old macbook pro and wish to clean hard drive. Need a CD of OSX to reinstall after cleaning. How do I get mountain lion on a CD?

Mountain Lion does not come on discs of any kind. But you don't need one. You'll find instructions for getting your machine ready for sale here:
How to prepare your Mac for sale

I've ordered a new mac book pro 15" and i need to clean hard drive off my old PC...not really to move them to the mac, but just to save in case needed; mostly pics and office docs....any suggestions?

I've ordered a new mac book pro 15" and i need to clean hard drive off my old PC...not really to move them to the mac, but just to save in case needed; mostly pics and office docs....any suggestions?

Buy an external USB hard drive and copy your data to it. Either that or burn them all to single or double layer DVDs (depending on amount of data you have). Or if it's really a small amount, consider putting it all on a USB memory stick.

Booting off a clean hard drive.....

Hello, everyone....
I am running ZENworks 7 and I think it is fairly up to date.
I have a laptop with a clean hard drive. The drive was formatted and then it
was put into a Lenovo T500 laptop. As far as I know, it have never been
touched by anything ZENworks related.
Now, when I boot up the computer, a ZENworks pre-boot sequence starts.
How do I get this to stop? I would like it see the message that there is no
operating system.
Thanks.
Delon E. Weuve
Senior Network Engineer
Office of Auditor of State
State of Iowa
United States of America

Boot from the imaging iso cd
select Custom to boot up and get a linux prompt
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=64
sync
reboot
The above process is non reversible - all partitions will be lost. So be sure you are erasing the correct system. :-)
This blasts the MBR, image safe data, and makes the disk look factory fresh. Its easy to construct a bootab Linux DVD that does this in an unattended way in case you have a lot of workstations to process. Its also a good way of getting rid of MBR root kits which re-imaging will not get rid of.
-- Bob

Windows 7 and iTunes doens't recognise iPod Classic 80g after wipe clean hard drive and format fat32.

My iPod Classic 80gb every now-and-then goes funny, and eventually iTunes doesn't recognise it. In the past I could put it on disk mode, and do a reset, but some times I would have to format (FAT32), uninstall and reinstall iTunes, so it would work. Now it happened again, this time wiped clean the hard drive and formatted. However windows 7 and iTunes still doesn't recognise it. Tried many tips online but nothing works. All software I have used don't see the hard drive, so can't format it again.
I can get it on disk mode but even then windows and iTunes don't recognise it. When connecting to laptop my machine goes boiling hot. Left it connected with iTunes on for few hours but still no luck.
Any suggestions?

Hello @turingtest2.
Following your threat I realized it was time to have my hard drive changed. My iPod classic has a Samsung Model: HS081HA, 80gb/3600 rpm (real hard to get it open and check out!!!).
My question is if I DO HAVE to buy exactly the same hard drive, or I could get away with another manufacturer and model, such as Toshiba (80 GB MK8009GAH FOR iPod Video 5th 5.5th iPod Classic 6.5th 7th Gen Hard Drive - Ebay listing)?
I ask you that as these Toshiba hard drives are considerably cheaper.
Help much appreciated.

My iMac keeps telling me no room on hard drive even tho i have cleaned hard drive

my iMac keeps telling me no room on hard drive even tho i have cleaned the
hard drive and still have 5 gig left, thanks

Carloyn Samit wrote: Never allow the free disk space to fall below 15% of the capacity.
This is an urban legend. First, since disk capacity varies greatly, giving this kind of percentage figure is completely worthless.
There are many variables involved in determining the amount of space to leave free: among them, the needs of the particular OS installed, installed RAM, typical need for VM, applications typically used, and anticipated need for free space overall, such as knowing one will be adding space hogging movies or other files. Much depends on the user's habits.
For one user, leaving 20-30GB free might be needed, for another 10GB or even less might suffice.
But it would be plain silly to suggest that one leave 15% of a 500GB or a 1 or 2GB drive. (75GB,150GB, 300GB respectively?) This kind of percentage suggestion was perhaps somewhat useful when drives were much, much smaller.)

Cannot Install Windows on Clean Hard Drive

My wife's Toshiba Satellite E105-1802 was a horrific mess, so I decided to finally do a completely clean install as part of an upgrade to Windows 8. I backed up her files, put in the Windows 8 install disc, blew away all of the partitions, formatted the remaining partition and then discovered that I could not install Windows on it. For some reason, the bios is looking for a specific partition on the hard drive. I have no idea why this would be. I've probably built 30 PCs and I have NEVER had this happen.
I tried to reboot the computer to see what would happen and got an error indicating that no such partition exists, without specifying what partition it was looking for. I used the Windows install disc to create Partitions 1 thru 4. No dice. I have no idea what to do at this point.
Any thoughts?

Here is the .ini file off of my recovery USB stick and it looks like it may contain what you will need. Good luck.
[Define]
D_HDDRMODE=Auto
D_IMAGETYPE=single
D_MBRPATH=\Image\MBR
D_MBR=S3B4900A201
D_TOSMBRPATH=\Image\MBR
D_TOSMBR=S3B4901A201
D_NTFSID=07
D_WINDOWSIMAGEPATH=\Image\Windows
D_LANGUAGEPATH=\Image\WinPE\ENG
D_OSTYPE=Windows7
D_OSARCHITECTURE=64bit
D_PARTITIONMINIMUMSIZE=40960MB
D_WINDOWSDRIVE=C
D_WINPE=S3B7700A001
D_WINDOWSVOLUME=TI106426W0A
D_WINDOWSIMAGE=TI106426W0A
D_HDRECID=17
D_HDDRECOVERYPATH=\Image\Windows
D_HDDRECOVERYVOLUME=HDDRECOVERY
D_HDDRECOVERY=TI106426W0A
D_HDDRECOVERYSIZE=13871MB
IRSEnable=0
IRSSize=0
IsTais=1
[HDD1_Area1]
AreaType=MBR
MBRPath=D_MBRPATH
MBR=D_MBR
[HDD1_Area2]
AreaType=TOSMBR
MBRPath=D_TOSMBRPATH
MBR=D_TOSMBR
[HDD1_Area3]
AreaType=WinRE
PartitionType=Primary
FileSystem=NTFS
PartitionID=27
Size=1500MB
BootInfo=Active
VolumeLabel="System"
SWImgProtonPath=D_WINDOWSIMAGEPATH
SWImgProton=D_WINDOWSIMAGE
LastChangeID=YES
[HDD1_Area4]
AreaType=Windows
PartitionType=Primary
FileSystem=NTFS
PartitionID=D_NTFSID
Size=MAX
BootInfo=InActive
LanguagePath=D_LANGUAGEPATH
OSType=D_OSTYPE
PartitionMinimumSize=D_PARTITIONMINIMUMSIZE
Language=D_WINPE
SWImgProtonPath=D_WINDOWSIMAGEPATH
SWImgProton=D_WINDOWSIMAGE
VolumeLabel=D_WINDOWSVOLUME
DriveLetter=D_WINDOWSDRIVE
OSArchiTecture=D_OSARCHITECTURE
[HDD1_Area5]
AreaType=HDDRecovery
PartitionType=Primary
FileSystem=NTFS
PartitionID=D_HDRECID
Size=D_HDDRECOVERYSIZE
BootInfo=InActive
SWImgProtonPath=D_HDDRECOVERYPATH
SWImgProton=D_HDDRECOVERY
VolumeLabel=D_HDDRECOVERYVOLUME
LastChangeID=YES
[HDD1]
AreaCount=5
SetMax=NONE
Type=SATA
[HDD2_Area1]
AreaType=UserData
PartitionType=Primary
FileSystem=NTFS
PartitionID=D_NTFSID
Size=MAX
BootInfo=InActive
[HDD2]
AreaCount=1
SetMax=NONE
Type=SATA
[HDD]
Count=Mounting
RAIDType=NONE
RAIDDisk=NONE
[Include]
Procedure=S3B7710A701
ProcedurePath=\Image\Procedure
L875D-S7232 (Win 8.1)

How to clean hard drive

how to clean hard drive

Backup clone. Boot off the other drive. Reformat. Do a clean install. Run Setup Assistant. And of yes, upgrade to a new drive or SSD.
Otherwise, just be sure you have 1/3 free space or more.

Error while installing OSX on a clean hard drive

Hi, here the story: I've decided to reistall osx mavericks on my macbook, so i restarted my mac clicking cmd+r, and that in the recovery mode i earsed the main hard drive so i can have a clean install.
after that i went back and clicked the "Install osx maverics" and after asking my permission to "verify the installation with apple" i got this error:
An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again.
I restarted, and then it started the "internet recovery" mode, wich now gives me the option to install osx mountain lion instead of mavericks, and gives me the same error every single time...
I've checked the date through the terminal, and its correct, but im not "PDT", thats the only error, Im in "IDT" time zone.
I dont know what to do, please help me...

Hi, pietrodg -
The need to do a firmware update has nothing at all to do with whether the hard drive is 'clean' or not. Since a firmware update places new coding on one or more chips on the Mac's logicboard, erasing the hard drive or even replacing it with a new one will not alter the status of the firmware version on the machine.
The firmware update in question is applicable to the G4 (AGP), G4 (Gigabit Ethernet), and G4 (Digital Audio) models. You can check in Apple System Profiler to see what the current firmware version is - look for the info line labelled "Boot ROM version". If that line states something like "$0004.28f5" then it has been updated to the latest firmware version, v. 4.2.8.
Another way to check is to download and run the firmware updater - if it is not needed, the installer will so state and refuse to run further. You can download the updater from here -
Article #120068 - G4 Firmware Update 4.2.8
Note - the firmware updater will run only when the machine is booted to OS 9 on an internal writeable drive, such as a hard drive, and the updater must be located on that boot drive.

Clean Hard Drive of Used Computer, Missing Latest Disc

Ok I think these are standard, simple problems all rolled into one:
I just bought a used MacBook Pro off somebody online to replace my 2005 pre-Intel Power Mac, which still runs great but I'm just tired of lugging it around. The MacBook Pro was erased but still contains some of the old owner's information (computer name, accounts, etc), and before moving files over I'd like to just wipe it clean and reinstall the OS. He did give me the gray discs, but they are for 10.6 (Snow Leopard) but the computer has been upgraded to 10.7 (Lion); I fear by rebooting I would downgrade to 10.6 since that's the disc I have. Reinstalling 10.7 after 10.6 is out because I don't have the login info used to buy 10.7. Any ideas? I've also considered just keeping 10.6 and just upgrading to 10.8 whenever it comes out (likely soon). Suggestions?

You have to downgrade to Snow Leopard so you can purchase and download your own copy of Lion. You cannot use the one installed by the old owner.
Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, 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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
Download the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 updater. You may now access the App Store. You will need an Apple ID if you don't have one Apple IDs and iCloud. Sign into the App Store with your Apple ID. Locate the Lion installer application. Purchase and download the installer. See the following:
Make Your Own Lion Installer
1. After downloading Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Lion application. After Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Lion installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing Lion.
2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
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.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
3. Locate the saved Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility.
Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Drag the InstallESD.dmg disc image file into the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable Lion installer that you can use without having to re-download Lion.

Clean hard drive

im trying to clean up my laptop to pass it on. i have already bought mac os x snow leopard upgrade. can i use this to restore everything? i want to wipe my computer clean, but can i use the upgrade to reinstall the programs for the new user? and how to i clean my mac?

1: Get all your data off first obviously, disconnect all other drives and media.
2: Stick the SL disk in the computer and reboot holding the c key down, you'll boot off the disk
3: First screen is the language, second screen is the installer, but wait, look under the Utilities menu for Disk Utility, launch that.
4: On the left you'll see a bunch of things, your hard drive makers name should be at the top left, select that.
5: Next click the Erase tab thing, click Security Erase > Zero All Data (leave the formatting HFS+ journaled) and then click Erase... come back in a hour or two. If you need more security pick the 7x erase, it will take more hours and really scrub the drive to military standards.
6: Once that is completed, quit and you back in the installer, install OS X SL onto the hard drive.
When it's finished you can time it when it starts to reboot and hold the power key down to shut it down hard.
When the next user goes to boot, they get the Welcome Screen and initial setup, so it's all ready.
All the OS X bundled programs are included on the SL upgrade disk except iLife, that's on the grey disks that came with your computer and to get that back you first have to install OS X from those disks first, then setup a initial account then use the SL disks to upgrade.
I'm assuming you don't have the grey disks, so that's why your installing from the white SL upgrade disks. (which really has the whole OS, not a upgrade)
If you do want iLife installed, then you need to install from the grey disks first, the proceedure is just about the same on 10.5, hold c and boot, use Disk Utility to Erase the drive, install 10.5, reboot, go through the initial setup, then insert the 10.6 disks (no c boot needed) and simply double click on the updater installer and it will handle the upgrade to 10.6
Usually the next person is going to wipe everything off anyway, but then again they may not. You'll have to pick some sort of nick name to enter into the user fields, and skip the registration process.
The important thing is to use the Security Option> Zero all Data (or 7 pass erase), this scrubs the entire drive of all YOUR DATA, so it can't be recovered using certain software.

Need Help cleaning Hard Drive - What can I delete?

I am attempting to clean my hard drive and find space! I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper and see some large files I am wondering if I can delete. Can I delete without consequence the following:
Under Library - Cookies, Cache, Thunderbird
Under Desktop Items - previous local idisk with a .sparsebundles extension
I would appreciate any advice in this regard.

You need to free up lots of hard drive space.
At a minimum, at least, 15 to 20 GBs of space.
Perhaps even more.
Hard drive full or near full:
You are going to have to delete, move or archive your data to regain hard drive space.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
You may have to Purchase an external FireWire or Thunderbolt hard drive to move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Restore from time machine on clean hard drive

I want to change my current hard drive to a SSD hard drive. Unfortunately i lost the DVD that came with the Mac, so my question is whether i can do a complete restore from the time machine backup? Does it include all the iOs file and everything?

You will need the Install DVD that shipped with your Mac...
Contact AppleCare and for a small Handling fee they will send you the Appropriate disc.
Contacting Apple World Wide for Support and Service
http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57
Apple Contact USA
http://www.apple.com/contact/

"Wipe clean" hard drive

I was about to "wipe clean" my G5 iMac for resale or give away with Installer Disc. However, the only disc I can find reads, "iMac G5 Additional Software & Apple Hardware Test" . Can I erase the drive with this disc? If not, how? HELP!
~Neophyte NaNa~

Doubtful. Very.
You can define a new user & delete old users. Then, zero out free space.
Restore Tiger 10.4 & Leopard 10.5 DVDs are available from Apple by calling 800-767-2775 as of January 20, 2013. There is a small fee.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4720126?tstart=0
Zeroing out free space.
mac hd > Applications > Utilities >Disk Utility
For this example, my startup drive is Ext-Remainder
1) Click on your startup partition.
It's a little confusion which to click on. There is the harddrive and under the harddrive name, the partition name or names.
You want the name of your startup partition.
Click on this name.
2) click on the erase tab.
3) Click on Erase Free Space button at the bottom mid-left of erase panel.
in this panel.
4) You will be asked how many times you wish to erase. One time takes the last amount of time.
4) Erasing more than once will take a long time.

Re-importing to Aperture after cleaning hard drive.

Recently I wiped clean my harddrive to reinstall OS Lyon. Of course I backed up everything on a external harddrive. Once Lyon was installed I migrated all the data back onto the system harddrive. Now, all of those versions that I had also stored in Apeture are either missing or contaminated. So what shall I do, delete the old versions in Aperture then re-import new versions into Aperture?
Thanks,
Buzzsdad.

Hi Ernie,
I had to take my imac to the Apple Store, so I was without my machine and couldn't respond to your reply. The logic board needed to be replaced. Fortunately, I have the Apple Care Plan, so the repair didn't cost me anything. Since your last post I've read up on Referenced and Managed Library, and I now know about Vaults. It turns out that 1/2 my files were managed the others were Referenced. And I've also learned that referenced isn't as simple. However, let me ask you this. Should I just delete all of the referenced projects in the my Aperature Library, then reimport them back into the Libary. Wouldn't that be the simplist way to do it, rather than adding files on top of corrucpted files.
Thanks,
Tom

Data tranfer to recently cleaned hard drive, noback up

Hi,
I recently had a virus on my computer and had to have it cleaned. All data files were saved. I reloaded photoshop elements 4, but the program did not find and pull the photes back into the program. I do not have backup. I see all the photos and they are listed as Adobe files. I would like to be able to get them back with their tags. Can somebody explain this process to me? Help is appreaciated and I am sure this is a fairly normal occurance. Barry

If you want your tags, you probably need to recover the catalog file (*.psa) that was on your computer before you cleaned it. If you didn't save that file, then there is a chance your tags are gone. Another possibility is that you wrote the tags to the files with the Organizer command File->Write Tags..., in which case your tags should return when you re-import into PSE. If you don't have either of those, then your tags are gone.

Cleaning Hard Drive

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