Computer won't boot, start up disk full....help!

I week or so ago I kept getting an error message that my HD was full. I checked the HD and sure enough, all 250GB is used. How the heck? Even with all of my pictures and music, my hard drive is only about 1/2 full and this just happened all of a sudden so I am thinking virus or torrent issue? Regardless, before I had the chance to scan my system for files that could be causing this issue, my computer shut down and now it will not boot. When I try to start, it just says that the start up disk is full and sits at a blue screen. I tried booting in safe mode and booting from the disk and running disk utility, but nothing is working. Suggestions??? I need help on how to actually get this thing running and then how to find the files causing the issue??? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

You don't have a virus. That's the Windows way of thinking. When you have a problem with a Mac, a "virus" should be the last thing you suspect, not the first.
To stop the "Are you sure..." warning, from the Finder menu bar, select Finder > Preferences > Advanced and uncheck the box labeled Show warning before emptying the Trash. You'll then get no warning before the Trash is emptied, and once it's emptied, there's no undo.
To delete locked files, hold down the option key and select Finder > Empty Trash from the menu bar.

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Computer won't boot from any disk, including recovery.

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So I have an Ubuntu district I'm using,
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Well let's start from the beginning. I was being an idiot and messing around with unix commands and created a directory in \usr\, and went to command line delete it with rm -rf \usr\ DO NOT DO THIS!!! I canceled it before it could do damage to personnel files etc. but it destroyed the OS. So with your advice I created a small partition of the disk and copied over personnel files.

Start up Disk full - Help

Anyone have suggestions on how to solve this? I have deleted some unnecessary files, but still get this warning on start up. Would adding memory solve my problem? Thank you.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305454 Mac OS X 10.4: FileVault - "There isn't enough space on your hard disk..." alert
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303602 Mac Maintenance Quick Assist
Scroll down to "4) Prune Through Your Files".
Slimming your hard drive

Restarted my Mac and a white screen appeared, remained, and a yellow triangle with an explanation point stating Start up disk full- Help!!!!

I updated a couple days ago to OS x Maverick, everything on my Mac was working fine after update. But, Than today When I went to do stuff on my Mac it was frozen. So, I turned it off. When i turned it back on, the apple icon was on the screen and you can see that it was loading, but after several seconds it went to a white/grayish screen and a yellow triangle with an explanation mark popped up with a warning saying that "startup disk is full" i clicked okay and the warning went away but the white screen remained. I did do a Command R and pulled up the utility disk where I did repair disk, and than permission to repair, but it did not work. I think i need to erase some files and so forth, but I cant get past the white screen and into the desktop in order to do get to files to delete. Please help!
Thank you

You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!
With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.
If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
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 store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.
Other things you can do to gain space.
Once you have around 15 GBs regained, do a search, download and install OmniDisk Sweeper.
This app will help you locate files that you can move/archive and/or delete from your system.
STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that 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.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Start up disk full--computer will not boot.

Our Mac gives a "start up disk full" error message and freezes on the blue screen after the password login. Resetting did no good, and entering safe mode only allows it go one step further but without any icons. Unfortunately, we are traveling overseas and do not have a boot disk to use. Is there a way to boot the computer, with a full start up disk, in order to resolve the issue without using a separate boot disk?

If you have files on the drive you can delete then you can try this:
Boot into single-user mode by holding down the COMMAND and S keys until the computer starts up to a black screen with white type. Once it stops scrolling you should see a prompt with the cursor. Enter the following:
/sbin/fsck -fy
Press RETURN. If you receive a message that says "***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****" then re-run the command until you receive a message that says "** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK." If you re-run the command more than seven times and do not get the OK message, then the drive cannot be repaired this way. If you were successful then enter:
/sbin/mount -uw /
cd /Users/username
Replace "username" with your admin account's username or shortname. Press RETURN after each command line.
You may navigate into any one of your folders located in the Home folder which include:
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Movies
Music
Pictures
by using the 'cd' command. For example, to move into your Documents folder:
cd Documents
ls -al
This moves you into the Documents folder then lists the contents of the folder. Press RETURN after each command line.
To return to your Home folder enter:
cd ..
which moves you up one level in the hierarchy. To delete a file enter:
rm -rf "filename"
where "filename" is the name of the file you want to delete. For a whole folder it's the same command only use the folder's name instead of the file's name. The quotes are use for names that have spaces in them.
If you are able to delete some large files this will free up space on your hard drive.
To restart the computer normally enter:
reboot
Be careful to enter commands correctly because in single-user mode you can permanently screw things up if you aren't careful what commands you enter. I suggest you print this out so you will have everything at your fingertips for verification.
Alternatively, find an Apple retailer and see if they will fix things for you, perhaps install a larger hard drive.

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Reboot into Safe Mode (hold the shift key down at the sound of the chime, release when the progress bar appears) Safe Mode will take longer to boot than normal.

For a while now my computer has been saying " Start up disk is nearly full", however I don't have a lot of stuff saved on the computer I moved a lot to a flash drive, and all the other stuff are songs and recently saved essays for school. Help.

For a while now my computer has been saying " Start up disk is nearly full", however I don't have a lot of stuff saved on the computer I moved a lot to a flash drive, and all the other stuff are songs and recently saved essays for school. I have and frequently empty my trash can. I have researched this before and i see a lot of things that say get a external hard drive, but before I go and purchase one I want to make sure there is no other, simpler way, to solve this problem. Help Please.

You need an external drive so you can free up disk space. Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure you have a minimum of 15% free disk space.
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk

Why is my computer telling me my start up disk is full?

Why is my computer telling me my start up disk is full? and What do I do about it? Please help - Linda

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Is there an emergency eject hole on the newer iMacs. disk stuck in drive and computer won't boot.

Is there an emergency eject hole on the newer iMacs? I have a disk stuck in the drive and the computer won't boot. Need to get this disk out to load repair disk.

If you are getting nothing at all you should take it in for repairs.

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OK, so let us suppose that you have the correct disk, the possibilities are:
• the optical drive is not functioning properly. However, since the disk shows up on the desktop the drive is apparently reading it.
• the disk itself is the issue. It could the wrong disk, but let us assume it is not. It could be damaged so that it is no longer bootable, or it could dirty. I would begin by giving the disk a good buffing and see if that will encourage it to boot the computer.
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cornelius

Upon start up I get a start up disk full message and to delete files, now I only get a a blue screen on start up. How to I get past the blue screen and how do I delete files?

Upon start up I get a "start up disk full message, delete files". Now on startup I only get a blue screen. How do I get past the blue screen and how do I delete files.

That;s really not enough free space... you can use a tools such as OmniDiskSweeper to find out where your large files reside and begin pruning (or copying to an external if they're files that you want to keep).
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Clinton

Imac frozen at blue screen after i went into disk utilities and cleaned my free space. I tried holding down T key as it reboots and i get a message. Start up disk full empty it how can one emptie it if you cant get past the blue screen

Imac frozen at blue screen after i went into disk utilities and cleaned free space.
I tried holding down T key as it reboots
and i get a message. Start up disk full empty it how can one emptie it if you cant get past the blue screen?
to make matters worse we bought the IMAC of amazon uk on the 4/07/011 so what can we do?
please remember how frustrating it is when asking for help when the helper telling you to type something on the screen when its frozen
Tell us when you can type some instuctions to the software how do you get to the doss prompt so to speak to do this
Thanks

i tried all this thanks
i can not get past blue screen and message Your disk is full it needs to be emptied Please not I cant proceed past this message.
no matter what you tell me
Am i right ok in thinking that
when i went into disk utilities and chose to clean my free space i left it over one hour to do its stuff
i came back and there was no progress bar just the box so i quit the program and when i opened mac mail the system just froze i forced quit mail rebooted and blue screen death
Now when free space is being cleaned is it the same as windows dose the utility write lots of 0 on the hard drive then rebbot its self to free the space
basicly is my hard drive full of 00000 is this why im getting this message because the process was interupted
I need to know if i need outside help i bought the computer on line on amazon uk what dose one do next

Computer won't boot if the GTX 970 is plugged in

Hello everyone,
I just recently bought and assembled a new computer, however, the computer won't boot when the gpu is plugged in.
The motherboard I got is a MSI Z97I Gaming AC and the GPU is a MSI GeForce GTX 970.
When the GPU isn't plugged in the mobo, everything boots up fine and I was able to check with the bios that every other elements of the computer where recognized fine. When I plug in the GPU however, the system won't boot. The fans of the case, the mobo AND the GPU's are working and the GPU's leds also on, so it shouldn't be a PSU issue (I use a 750W PSU so that should cover it). However, no boot at all.
I don't really feel like trying to plug the GPU in another computer if it's just some compatibility issue or whatnot that you may be aware of. Maybe the bios doesn't recognise it ? The version is e7920IMS V1.0, I wasn't really able to find any kind of information regarding the latest versions online.
Thank you,
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Here it is, follow the below to update to 1.4:
>>Use the MSI HQ Forum USB flasher<<
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My computer won't boot to my hard drive after installing my new MFP M127FW printer unless I first unplug the USB cable from the printer and then turn on the computer. My BIOS is set to boot from my hard drive, not from a USB drive, so what did the installation of the MFP M127FW drivers and software do to my computer? I assume this has something to do with the Smart Install feature.
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi @frcraig ,
I see that you are experiencing issues with the computer booting up when the printer is connected by the USB cable.
I would like to help you out with this issue today.
Most likely it is the Smart Install on the printer causing this. The printer looks like a disk drive.
On the printer, touch Setup, Service, Smart Install and turn it off.
If you are still having issues, in the system BIOS, disable the Boot from USB device option and the USB Legacy Support option. Doing this will allow the PC to complete the boot process to the internal hard drive and allow you to enter Windows. If this does not work for any reason, you should boot your PC before connecting the USB drive. Once the computer is fully booted into Windows, connect the USB drive and wait for the operating system to detect the drive.
Important: Do not disable the USB Legacy Support if you are using a USB Keyboard. Doing so will prevent you from being able to use the keyboard during the booting sequence.
What kind of computer do you have?
If you need further assistance, just let me know.
Have a great day!
Thank You.
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
Gemini02
I work on behalf of HP

G5 gets grey screen with logo then goes black, won't boot from any disk

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Hi bribiel, and a warm welcome to the forums!
It certainly sounds like the Video card from the little info we have, & that can certainly cause it to fail to bootup.

Computer won't boot, start up disk full....help!

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