Cleaning stuff off hard drive.

Ok I keep having trouble with my start up disk being full so i purchased what app which is brilliant and cleared loads of space. I have a query. Most of the memory is taken up with itunes which is split into two. Itunes media and Itunes music. However Itunes media contains a file called itunes music (with 36.8gb stored) The separate itunes music takes up 21.6gb. My question is are these the same files. ie. if i delete the itunes music will my itunes still remain from the itunes media-music files?
Thanking in advance..
chris.

Try a program such as Disk Inventory X or OmniDiskSweeper.
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I downloaded Lion on my iMac. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. Nothing shows up from before. It looks like a brand new computer. It is backed up on Time machine. Any idea of why this happened and suggestions on restoring? Thanks.

I downloaded Lion on my 4 yr old iMac. The download stalled at the last minute so I clicked "CANCEL". When it was restarted, Lion was there, with no apparent option but to go ahead and install so I assumed it was okay. Didn't transfer data from "another computer" when prompted - assumed it would transfer from that computer. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. It looks like a brand new computer. None of my apps, programs, files, or thousands of photos.   It is backed up on Time machine, but it's a sickening sight. Any idea why this happened and suggestions before restoring? Thanks.

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

I have an old imac G3 desk top computer that I would like to donate. I need to clean up the hard drive. How do I do this?

I have an old imac G3 desk top computer that I would like to donate. I need to clean up the hard drive. HOw do I do this?

If you have a Mac OS 8.x or 9.x CD (depending on the iMac model), look for a Drive Setup utility somewhere on that disc. Boot from the CD while holding down the C key. Initialise the hard disk with a 'Zero all data' option chosen.
Jan

Best way to clean out a hard drive.

I have a A505 S605 Satelite laptop with a hard drive full of junk. I would like to start over by cleaning out the hard drive completely. After the hard drive is cleaned out, I will install everything using the recovery disks that I got from the Geek Squad when I bought the computer.
What is the best way to get the hard drive wiped out? Thank you for your help.

Just back up the data you need to keep onto a usb thumb drive or usb external hard drive then run the Recovery Disk to restore the system to it's factory out of box state. IT will wipe the drive as part of the process leaving your system exactly as it came to from the factory. You don't need to delete anything first.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

Clean out my hard drive

how do I clean up my hard drive on macbook pro? need more room. thank you.. life long pc user so am totally lost...

Have a Look at this Video...
http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

What is the best app for cleaning up the hard drive?

What is the best app for cleaning up the hard drive?

No such application needed.
Leave 10 to 15% disk space free.
Restart once in a while.
Keep a backup, clone preferably.
If there is any problem with the disk, repair disk.
    Repair Disk
    Steps 1 through 7
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
Best.

Format and clean off Hard Drive

Hi,
I want to totally clean off my HD on my G3, dual USB ibook. I want to format it (or whatever), so that anything that may be on there is gone. Once I do this, I want to re-load Tiger back on. Will everything work again or are there drivers, like with windows that I'll have to reload again?
My main question is:
How do I format and totally clean off the internal HD and how do I reload Tiger and make it a bare bones computer again? What is the best way of doing this and do I need other software to do this?

The only sure way to know that your data is unrecoverable is to remove the hard disk and destroy it.
Here is the link to Apple's Knowledge Base article on zeroing the hard drive using Tiger's Disk Utility:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1011.html
This should be good enough security for you unless you plan on turning it over to computer specialists who know how to do data recovery.
If you want to have the applications that came with the iBook back on it, you will need to use the Restore CDs that came with it before installing Tiger. Choose the appropriate link to the method of restoring you need from this article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61802
Once you have the iBook restored to its like-new condition, you can upgrade to Tiger and you will have all the original applications, too.
Good luck!

Clean off hard drive

I bought a new hard drive and installed it in a hp pavilion dv7. Tried to download windows vista and windows 7. keep getting error message that I am missing the windows/system32/winload.exe file. ANY suggestions as to how to fix this? I do not have recovery cds and am not sure how to make them from another computer. I would like to clear off the hard drive and just start over. Suggestions please!!

You can order recovery disks from below link
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00810334
//Click on Kudos and Accept as Solution if my reply was helpful and answered your question//
I am an HP employee!!

HT3226 how do i clean up my hard drive on my mac

How can i clean up my mac

How to maintain a Mac
1. Make redundant backups, keeping at least one off site at all times. One backup is not enough. Don’t back up your backups; make them independent of each other. Don’t rely completely on any single backup method, such as Time Machine. If you get an indication that a backup has failed, don't ignore it.
2. Keep your software up to date. In the Software Update preference pane, you can configure automatic notifications of updates to OS X and other Mac App Store products. Some third-party applications from other sources have a similar feature, if you don’t mind letting them phone home. Otherwise you have to check yourself on a regular basis. This is especially important for complex software that modifies the operating system, such as device drivers. Before installing any Apple update, you must check that all such modifications that you use are compatible.
3. Don't install crapware, such as “themes,” "haxies," “add-ons,” “toolbars,” “enhancers," “optimizers,” “accelerators,” “extenders,” “cleaners,” "doctors," "tune-ups," “defragmenters,” “firewalls,” "barriers," “guardians,” “defenders,” “protectors,” most “plugins,” commercial "virus scanners,” "disk tools," or "utilities." With very few exceptions, this stuff is useless, or worse than useless.
The more actively promoted the product, the more likely it is to be garbage. The most extreme example is the “MacKeeper” scam.
As a rule, the only software you should install is that which directly enables you to do the things you use a computer for — such as creating, communicating, and playing — and does not modify the way other software works. Use your computer; don't fuss with it.
Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it. Otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.
The free anti-malware application ClamXav is not crap, and although it’s not routinely needed, it may be useful in some environments, such as a mixed Mac-Windows enterprise network.
4. Beware of trojans. A trojan is malicious software (“malware”) that the user is duped into installing voluntarily. Such attacks were rare on the Mac platform until sometime in 2011, but are now increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous.
There is some built-in protection against downloading malware, but you can’t rely on it — the attackers are always at least one day ahead of the defense. You can’t rely on third-party protection either. What you can rely on is common-sense awareness — not paranoia, which only makes you more vulnerable.
Never install software from an untrustworthy or unknown source. If in doubt, do some research. Any website that prompts you to install a “codec” or “plugin” that comes from the same site, or an unknown site, is untrustworthy. Software with a corporate brand, such as Adobe Flash Player, must be acquired directly from the developer. No intermediary is acceptable, and don’t trust links unless you know how to parse them. Any file that is automatically downloaded from a web page without your having requested it should go straight into the Trash. A website that claims you have a “virus,” or that anything else is wrong with your computer, is rogue.
In OS X 10.7.5 or later, downloaded applications and Installer packages that have not been digitally signed by a developer registered with Apple are blocked from loading by default. The block can be overridden, but think carefully before you do so.
Because of recurring security issues in Java, it’s best to disable it in your web browsers, if it’s installed. Few websites have Java content nowadays, so you won’t be missing much. This action is mandatory if you’re running any version of OS X older than 10.6.8 with the latest Java update. Note: Java has nothing to do with JavaScript, despite the similar names. Don't install Java unless you're sure you need it. Most people don't.
5. Don't fill up your boot volume. A common mistake is adding more and more large files to your home folder until you start to get warnings that you're out of space, which may be followed in short order by a boot failure. This is more prone to happen on the newer Macs that come with an internal SSD instead of the traditional hard drive. The drive can be very nearly full before you become aware of the problem. While it's not true that you should or must keep any particular percentage of space free, you should monitor your storage consumption and make sure you're not in immediate danger of using it up. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of free space on the startup volume for normal operation.
If storage space is running low, use a tool such as the free application OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the most space. Move rarely-used large files to secondary storage.
6. Relax, don’t do it. Besides the above, no routine maintenance is necessary or beneficial for the vast majority of users; specifically not “cleaning caches,” “zapping the PRAM,” "resetting the SMC," “rebuilding the directory,” "defragmenting the drive," “running periodic scripts,” “dumping logs,” "deleting temp files," “scanning for viruses,” "purging memory," "checking for bad blocks," "testing the hardware," or “repairing permissions.” Such measures are either completely pointless or are useful only for solving problems, not for prevention.
The very height of futility is running an expensive third-party application called “Disk Warrior” when nothing is wrong, or even when something is wrong and you have backups, which you must have. Disk Warrior is a data-salvage tool, not a maintenance tool, and you will never need it if your backups are adequate. Don’t waste money on it or anything like it.

Cleaning up my Hard Drive- but it doesn't seem to notice

I've been cleaning out my iMac all day and reorganizing hard drives and such. I've cleaned a ton off my internal drive. By clicking on individual folders I can say I roughly have 95gb used on it. But. When I click get info it says I'm still using 321. I think it just hasn't adjusted since I've deleted so much stuff. I have tried restarting the computer making sure no externals are connected. Will I have to back up my computer (time machien) and reformat? (what I had to do with the external drives) Thanks for any help!

Thanks for the suggestions. I have already emptied the trash (and secure emptied the trash) and restarted several times. Downloads is empty.
I just repaired disk permissions as suggested (seems it had a lot to repair) but it didn't adjust this problem any.
When I organize by size in finder I get documents at 35gb then music at 42 followed by pictures at 6, everything else is under 1 gb.
I can't time machine because it thinks it needs 380 gb of space and my external is only 320. Might just manually back up and then repair my internal. But want to try everything else invade the space it thinks is filled actually is and I've just misplaced it (?) don't want to lose anything by accident.

Can I instal lion clean on my hard drive?

I dont want to upgrade my current system. Its all a bit clogged up at the moment because of all the software I have installed on it. How can I do a clean install of lion on my hard drive?

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.
nickboeka wrote:
Interested in getting an ATV, simply to interface my huge movie/tv show/music video collection directly to my TV. Currently, I have my entire collection in iTunes. I sync movies to watch on my iPod. Works great. Will the same movies get sync'd and be viewable through the ATV to my HDTV?
Any movies you sync to the ipod already will work on the tv.
does the ATV support only the same file types as iTunes?
Actually it supports less than itunes but anything that plays in itunes, itunes can convert for you.
Does the ATV allow you to manually manage what goes on it, like I can with the iPod? The reason is I have over 300gb of stuff, and don't want to sync all of it to the ATV at anyone time.
Yes you can manage what gets synced and what doesn't although the management isn't quite the same as on the ipod.

TIME MACHINE ON MACBOOK PRO - when to turn off hard drive

I'm about to begin using Time Machine and have a rather basic question. From what I've read it seems that TM is a round the clock kind of deal: backing up every hour on the hour. I have a MacBook Pro, which I do not keep on all the time. I shut it off every night, and when I'm traveling from location to location. Can I just shut down the external hard drive affiliated with Time Machine every night too, and then start it up in the A.M. with my computer? What happens when I'm traveling away from the external hard drive and the hourly back-up times come up?
any help is appreciated.
Rex

I think that if you look closely, you will see that most people with "endless" backup problems are running older machines, with slower processors and older USB/Firewire controllers. No doubt, there are others with more up to date machines that are experiencing problems as well, but I think its less common.
You and I both have MacBook Pros (I have the original one). My backup of the FULL system went quite well, and took less than an hour to an external firewire 400 drive. So I think it would be worth it for you to back-up your whole system.
If you backed up everything, including those system files and the library, then if something did go wrong, the restore process would be much easier. all you would do is boot up from the Leopard DVD, and follow the menus to choose the option to Restore from Time Machine Backup.
(one exception: if you did an Archive and Install vs a clean install of Leopard, you might want to exclude the old system folder)
Message was edited by: erik graham

Can't do a complete clean install (defective hard drive?)

Hello
I picked up a used G4 Quicksilver 733 mhz.
I knew that I would need a retail OS 9.2 bootable install disc, to do a fresh install, so I picked one up.
But it appeared as though the prior owner did not do a proper erase of the old hard drive, because before I tried a new install, upon boot up, I always recieved a stalled start up of OS 9.2
Anyway, I attempted a new install:
Pressing the C Prompt Starts OS 9.2 and you will see the Prompt "Starting Up"
I then opened Disk Utility, and choose the option for 'Drive Set Up'
I then choose 'Initialize', and received the option: "Initializing will destroy all data on the following volumes"
I also customized the initialization, and choose "Mac OS Extended" (but I believe this may have already been the defaulted option?)
I then selected the only HD, (the original existing 40 Gig HD), and initialized it successfully
Next there was the option for "Clean Install"
I choose this, and customized the install unchecking "Airport" (as this computer will run on a wired router)
The install appears to complete itself and I choose the option: 'Quit'
At this point when I try to eject the disc, I continually recieve the prompt "The start up disc cannot be removed from the desktop because it contains the active system software."
Then when I shut the system down, and reboot, the same original problem occurs whereby the system boot up STALLS about 1/4 of the way into the operating system.
This leads me to believe that either the old hard drive was not erased properly, or it is defective.
Any other thoughts would be appreciated?
Thanx
Mike

As eww stated, you can't eject an OS Installer disc while it's running the computer. One can also eject a disc at startup, after the chime by pressing the CD drive tray button. Or if you have it, the eject button on your keyboard. But the mouse trick is a very good one. The point is, all methods are at startup, right after the chime.
Did you run Disk First Aid? If not, do so.
Also, you might open the case and reset the CUDA. It's a button next to the PRAM battery. Touch the power supply case; don't move about after doing so; or wear a static wrist band. Be careful...press the CUDA button once...careful in that you need to position yourself so that you press it once and not let your finger slip off. Don't touch anything else while doing so. Hold it down for 8-10 seconds.
A bad PRAM battery could also be a culprit. "operator headgap" has very good prices on batteries. I would suspect other things before assuming the HD is bad. HDD's can last a very long time; 'most' of the time they'll make noises if they're bad, but not all the time.
After the clean install and after you press Quit, choose Restart from the drop-down menu. Then you may eject the Installer disc and hopefully OS 9 will start up. If not, please let us know.
HTH!

Snow leopard clean install stuck (Hard Drive upgrade)

HELP!!!...I have a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I currently have OS X Lion on it and running great. My problem is that I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive from the stock 250GB to a 500GB that I just purchased. I learned to do that I needed to put the new drive into the Mac and then restart my computer booting from the Snow Leopard discs that came with my computer. I did that...got into the process, and before hitting the install button opened up the disk utility to format and correctly partition the new drive. Once the drive was ready I began installation of SL. Installation progressed to about 25% then stuck. I even waited a good hour to see if it would continue...all to no avail. I went through this process three times and each time the same thing. Any ideas??? I feel like this should be a fairly simple procedure.

adamw_music wrote:
Once the drive was ready I began installation of SL. Installation progressed to about 25% then stuck.
You have a bad sector on the drive, what you need to do is this:
(clean the bottom of the 10.6 disk with a bit of rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth, polish to a shine.)
1: rebooting holding the c key off the 10.6 installer disk
2: select disk utility and partition tab
3: 1 partition, option: GUID, format OS X Extended journaled and click Apply.
4: next click Erase> Security Option> Zero All Data (wait apx 1 hour per 500GB)
If that finishes, then your drive should be fine, if not, it's defective and you need to send it back.
Writting Zero's to the disk allows the driver to map off any bad sectors
5: Reinstall 10.6 like you tried, then update to 10.6.8, then install all programs and last return files from backup, in that order for good performance.
read more about cloning etc here
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

How to get songs back on iTunes once uploaded to iCloud & deleted off hard drive?

I have my 10,000 song library saved on an external hard drive. I got the subscription to help limit used space on my laptop hard drive. I started iTunes Match with my entire library (external drive) and uploaded my entire 10,000 songs. Once completed I deleted everything from my iTunes program & unplugged my external.
Now my computer has absolutely no songs on it and I now expected to have access to my entire 10,000 song library from the cloud. Once restarting my computer and iTunes I opened a library of all my songs visible in iCloud with download buttons but I was unable to actually click & download any of the songs that showed.
I turned off iTunes Match from the "Store" menu and turned it back on. Now my library is completely empty but when I check the iTunes Match tab it tells me that I have 10,000 songs in iCloud waiting for me.
How do I get my songs???????

This sounds like an issue of the local iTunes client getting confused about the location and status of the library.
To use iTunes with all Song files on an external disk is straightforward if you have instructed it to find the Song files in that location.
A good route would be to connect the external hard drive such that iTunes client can see all your Song files as normal - check that you can both play your Songs and complete an Update iTunes Match.
Assuming all is well at this point you can instruct the iTunes client to delete all Songs keeping files and not requesting iCloud deletion. At this stage all Songs should appear with a working download indicator against them.
If you now switch off iTunes Match. Restart the iTunes client and create a new blank local library store on your computers internal disk, then switch on iTunes Match - all Songs will now appear. You can complete a test download, it will simply store to your new library location. From here you have the state you wished, all Songs accessible from the iCloud - with the ability to download should you choose.

Cleaning stuff off hard drive.

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