Disk utility not erasing used space on external

Info on the 1 TB Lacie External drive reads:
Capacity 999.87GB
Available 999.21 GB
Used 663.6 GB
Why are the 663.6 GB used?
Please read what I've already done:
Deleted all items through finder
Emptied the trash
Securley emptied the trash
Erased the drive in disk utility
Erased free space in disk utility
Secure Erased the drive with the "most secure" US Department of Defense settings in disk utility
Erased and reformatted drive with a different format - MS-DOS (FAT)
Erased drive and formatted back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Tried some steps involving the terminal and lost my mind (if you give me terminal answers please make it copy and pasteable).
Yet still...663.6 GB used.

Fair enough. I'm selling it though. Do these residual system files contain anything that would allow someone to roll the drive back and access my deleted data?

Similar Messages

Disk Utility Problems - Erase Free Space

Today I decided to use disk utility to "Erase free space " on my MacbookPro. During the process it said it was creating a temporary file!
This took about 2 hours then the application stopped responding, so I clicked skip and ended up doing a force quit!
Unfortunately, this task did not complete but it seems to have added over 10GB to my hard drive.
Any ideas how I can find the file and delete it or should I consider restoring my Mac to yesterday using my Time machine backups.
Thanks
Keith

However, does anyone have any advice on how to use the "Erase Free Space " Utility
This option should only be used when you've insecurely deleted a file you meant to securely delete, and should not be used on a FAT32 drive with 4GB or more free space.
(57218)

My external hard drive accidentally switched off during Disk Utility's "erase free space" process. I restarted the external hard drive and Disk Utility, but now I get the "couldn't mount disk" error when trying to finish the erase. Please help!

My external Lacie Quadra hard drive accidentally switched off in the middle of "erase free space", and when I switched it back on Disk Utility was hanging. So I Force Quit Disk Utility and restarted it. Now when I try to erase I get
"Secure Disk Erase failed with the error: Couldn’t unmount disk."
But "erase free space" seems to work...
What can I do? I'm erasing as I'm giving the drive to someone else and I wanted to wipe it clean.
Also should I use "erase" or "erase free space" if I want to wipe the drive clean?
Please help!

Sorry I don't really understand.... there are no partitions on the drive. How do I repartition it?
And should I use "erasing free space" or "erase" for wiping clean my drive of everything? Erase seems to be faster last tiem I tried.
Thanks!

Disk Utility's "Erase Free Space" screwed me over big time. Help Please.

Hey, I have a serious dillema. I free'd up disk space on my mac by transfering files to an external drive, and then used Disk Utility to erase unused disk space to do a thorough cleaning. Now it seems that out of thin air, Disk Utility said my Mac is out of disk space....it basically filled up my hard drive with 370GB's of god knows what.
Here's exactly what I did, step by step:
Basically, I wanted to clean up my hard drive a bit, as I was using about 500GB's out of my 750GB HD (on my MBP 10.6.8)
-Before I did this test, I did a verify + repair disk permissions, I also organized my computer's files... and just to be safe, I booted up from the D key so I could do an extended hardware test to see if everything was running smoothly. I then zapped the PRam. This was my pre-clean maintenence check.
-Then I transferred all of my files onto my external disk.
-After this was done, I dumped the files (that I used to transfer to my External) into the trash bin.
-I emptied the trash bin.
-Now I free'd up hundreds of GB's of space.
-It said that I had 376 GB's of free space in my hard drive. Yay.
Now here where it all went wrong:
-I heard that if you go into Disk Utility, and click on "Erase Free Space" that it goes over all the delted files (that aren't actually permanently deleted) and it permanently deletes them so that it frees up all the loose ends on your mac. I didn't want any ghost files, or any old installs or whatever...so I thought, yes.
Now...Disk Utility was doing this for me....and 2 hours later....it said that I was out of disk space. Disk Utility froze around the 90% completion-mark when it was "Creating Volume" (or something like that) and I had to quit Disk Utility.
Then, I exited....went onto my desk top and checked my Hard Drive.
It said that I had ZERO KB's available.
My hard disk was completely full. How is this even possible? I had 376 GB's of EMPTY space 2 hours earlier.
I tried to go into all of my files to see if there were any duplicates made..I checked terminal to see what went wrong, I checked console...I searched, and I searched...and nothing.
What. The. Heck.
Can someone please, please help me?

Boot from your installation disc, erase the internal drive in Disk Utility, reinstall OS X, copy the files from your backup, and then run Software Update.

HT3680 How to get my free space back after quitting the disk utility's erase free space

Hi,
I started the DU's erase free space--fastest way method. When it almost completed, I had a pop up that said that I need to free up disk space.
So then i was flustered enought to just quit the program because I didnt want to free up disk space and I was frustrated.
Not knowing it would still keep whatever it was that took the remaning disk space on my Mac.
How to I get this removed so I am back to before?

Sorry I don't really understand.... there are no partitions on the drive. How do I repartition it?
And should I use "erasing free space" or "erase" for wiping clean my drive of everything? Erase seems to be faster last tiem I tried.
Thanks!

Disk Utility Not Formatting External USB Drive

Hello,
I recently upgraded to Leopard.  Around this same time, my company purchased two, 1 Terabyte USB External drives for my coworker and I in the graphics/web development department.  They arrived this morning and we were very excited.
My problem is that I cannot get Disk Utility to erase/format the new, external USB TB drive for use with my MBP.  Disk Utility fails almost immediately with the following message:
"*Disk Erase Failed*
Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed."
The options I'm choosing for the Erase are:
Volume Format: MAC OS EXTENDED  (i've even tried the 'journaled' version too)
Name: TB
As soon as I hit 'Erase' I get the error message I listed above.  The volume never mounts on my desktop and does not exist.  I can see the drive itself in the System Profiler, so my Mac sees it, it just can't format it!  I've also made sure all my permissions were repaired, so I'm just a little confused as to why this simple task keeps failing?
Is there some additional, esoteric step that I'm missing?
My coworker was able to get his disk to work because he did NOT have Time Machine turned on yet.  When he connected his new TB drive, Time Machine asked him to format/initialize the disk and he of course said "ok."  I had Time Machine set to use my OLD external USB drive and it's been working great. As of this writing, my coworker is a happy camper. I, however, am not.  I'm not blaming Time Machine, just noting the differences between my coworker's experience and my own. Since the volume is not currently mounted on my machine, I can't format my disk the same way as my coworker has done using Time Machine, since Time Machine doesn't see the volume.
My fear is that the manufacturer (whom I've also contacted and am awaiting their response) will throw this back to a software problem....and the folks on the forum here will point their fingers and say 'hardware problem.'  Ah, the eternal struggle.....who to blame?
Any help or additional troubleshooting tips are greatly appreciated.

This is the best, and only, way to format an external hard drive, which is courtesy of Kappy.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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 Options 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 will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

I formatted my mac and after installation went to disk utility to erase

hello
i wanted to get rid of everything so i backed up all the files i needed in an external hard drive
and then i shut down the mac and restarted inserting the 2 cd's after i was done i went to disk utility
and erased free space 35 times ,during this time i cannot update browsers, programs,and cannot download anything or create folders.
is that temporary and should i wait till it's done?
also what i read that it only erases items that were erased from the trash what about all the other files i had not put in the trash will that be somewhere in the system?
thanks
Message was edited by: cajred

If you use Disk Utility and choose the Erase Free Space option for any disk volume, it only overwrites the space Mac OS X lists as being unused. You choose this option to prevent someone from being able to recover a deleted file from your hard drive. When you empty the Trash normally, the actual data is not removed from the drive, only the pointer that tells the operating system where that data is located is removed, so it's possible to still access that data until the OS overwrites it. It's not just emptying the Trash, but unless something goes wrong, it should not erase the files on the drive you wish to keep.
And yes, it will indeed take a long time.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.

I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive on my macbook pro since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.
I cant find the options to erase selected items it only shows that i can erase everything.
I mean technically i suppose i could erase everything an have a fresh start since its backed up to my external. But what exactly are the specific items being erased?
I have bought the newest OS X 10.8.2 an worried that it will get erased also an end up having to repurchase it.
Can anyone help me?
<Personal Information Edited by Host>

Black_Chevy07 wrote:
I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive on my macbook pro since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.
I cant find the options to erase selected items it only shows that i can erase everything.
I mean technically i suppose i could erase everything an have a fresh start since its backed up to my external. But what exactly are the specific items being erased?
I have bought the newest OS X 10.8.2 an worried that it will get erased also an end up having to repurchase it.
Can anyone help me?
If you are trying to delete some files get out of Disk Utility, it is not for that!
How did you backup and what are you trying to achieve?
Please post the exact error messages(s) you have received.

Using Disk Utility to Erase an external drive freezes Disk Utility?

When I use Disk Utility to Erase an external drive, Disk Utility freezes indefinitely and the action is not performed.
How do I fix this?

To use it on your MBP you need to set the OPTION when you partition it so that it will be the Intel GUID partition scheme, then set the partition(s) you want.
If it is hanging or failing, that can be caused by bad sectors where the partition table has to be written. You might need to zero the drive. If you have a PC, then use Maxtor's tools to reformat and test the drive.
PPC Macs use one partition/format scheme, IntelMacs use another, and Windows a 3rd.

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

When I delete files on a USB, it doesn't free up memory on the stik. I find I have to empty the entire stik, use Disk Utility to 'erase' it, then transfer back the files I removed to free up all the space on the stik. Is this the best practice?

It frustrates me that if I delete a file from a USB, it doesn't free up the memory on the stik. I have been removing all the files from the stik, opening Disk Utility and erasing the empty USB. That frees up the entire stik. Then I have been transferring back the files I removed from the stik. The result is that I have memory available to use again. It seems to me this is an unnecessarily complicated and time consuming way to get the result. Is there a shorter way to do this?

Hello Horst,
Thank you for the question. Have you been emptying your trash after deleting the items? For the item to be removed from your USB device, you will need to empty the trash on your MacBook Pro after you delete the items, as described in the featured discussion below. Your USB device will still need to be connected when you do this:
Choose Empty Trash from the Finder menu. Unlike Windows, the trash needs to be emptied manually for any drive other than one mounted through the network.
Can't delete off my USB drive
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1946841
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Using Disk Utility Secure Erase Makes it hang?

Hi, I wanted to erase part of my drive (I was doing a generalized clean-up). I tried using the Disk Utility Secure Erase option. Even going with the single pass -- I'm just cleaning off free space, you know? ANyhow, it seems to hang a lot. The other functions on it seem to work ok. I looked at the force quit option and it says it isn't responding.
I did try just leaving it alone for a really long time, but unless I am doing the 35-pass erase it shouldn't take all night (which it did at one point and it still wasn't done).
(Computer is a MacBook late 2008 13" aluminum)
I had it do a repair and after I forced it to quit it said it did find bad areas of the disk and repaired them, or so it said.
But then I tried a verify and it seemed to crash again. So I get the sense there is something weird or fishy with Disk Util for 10.5.8. Any thoughts? My copy of TechTool works fine, it seems. Disk Util seems a bit unreliable right now, and I don't want to damage anything. But I also want an option to clean off the disk if I ever sell the computer or something like that. (I've been ID theft-ed once already, I'd rather not go through that again).

MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro

Using Disk Utility to erase Hard Drive

Hi All
I just bought a new external hard drive and am using Disk Utility to erase and format it. I did not know for sure if erasing the hard drive was the right thing to do. Anyway I set up the Volume as follows from the mac help instructions:
1.format OS extended journaled
2.Install OS9 disk driver.
3.("Zero all data" and "8 Way Random Write Format"). So it has been running for about 3 hours now and is only 1/8 of the way writing 0's to disk.
My question is should I continue on and just let it finish up? At the rate it is going It might be done by sometime tomorrow.
Or can I stop the erasing process without hurting the hard drive.
Then start disk utility erasing the hard drive without this Zero all data.
Thanks much

Just to confirm your impression, S. Frigolett: yes, everything should be fine now.
Zeroing a drive is advisable if you have reason to believe there may be bad data storage blocks on it; zeroing identifies those blocks and prevents them from being used (because using them would result in lost or corrupt data). A simple erase doesn't do that, but on a new drive straight from the factory there is no reason to think it's necessary.
The 8 way random write option is for people who have extremely sensitive data to erase from a drive that may pass into other hands, and who want to be sure that no one short of the NSA will have any chance of recovering any of that data. A new, empty drive has nothing on it that even the NSA could recover, so there's no reason to erase it that thoroughly.

Can I use Disk Utility to erase Apple TV hard drive?

Can I use Disk Utility to erase Apple TV hard drive?

I don't know, but I doubt it can be done using Disk Utility. I suggest you consult the user manual for it or see if there is a Reset option in the onscreen menues. If you don't have a manual, then you will find one at http://support.apple.com/manuals.

I'm getting this error with bootcamp "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned"

Here's the story...
I had a dual boot configuration on my mac with Mac OS X Lion and Windows XP (made with bootcamp).
I decided to reinstall windows.
I deleted the windows partition using BootCamp.
Tried to recreate the Windows partition with Boot Camp and got: "The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned You must have at least 10 GB of free space available"
After reading several posts on this forum I decided to defrag the hard drive and try again.
The defrag did not work and I'm still getting the error, I have 22 gb of free space on my drive.
Any suggestions?
Also, I tried repair disk and repair permissions
Hmm, my external harddrive says on the box "OS X 10.5.8 or higher (32-bit kernel only)" Could the 32-bit requirement be an issue? Is lion 64-bit?

Boot Camp must be able to allocate a contiguous block of space on the drive. If it cannot find 10 GBs of contiguous space, then you cannot create the Windows partition.
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive.
Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
Boot from the external hard drive.
Erase the internal hard drive.
Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your internal 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. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

Disk utility not erasing used space on external

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