Disk Utility Not Reporting Space Correctly

I often add very large files to my system before compressing them, sending them to clients, and then deleting them. This process leaves me constantly thinking about how much disk space I have free. Disk Utility, and an Apple approved app called DaisyDisk (space visualization) typically help me accompish this. Sadly, as of this week I seem to have a problem. When I went and looked the other day Disk U was telling me that 250gb of my 320gb drive is in use. This seemed high to me, but to be safe I thought I'd delete some files I didn't need. After deleting a bunch of videos, and a backup of my Main Identity (19gb) from my system, I'd assumed I had freed up about 24gb, but when I went back into Disk U it was still showing the same 250gb in use. Yes I rebooted my system, and made sure the trash was empty. As I investigated further I did a get info on all 6 folders on the MacHD and they added up to about 170gb. That seemed more realistic, so I did a get info on my MacHD and again it showed the same thing 170 in use and 148.something available. Note: I have no partitions on this drive. But yet, still when I go to Disk U it seemed to be stuck at only 64gb free. Today when I went and looked again I am still seeing the same amount in use and free on the MacHD get info, but on Disk U now I am seeing 108 free and 211 in use. Why the difference? I would think Get Info was pulling from the same place as the mac disk utility.
Would appreciate any insight!
AG

fane_j, again thanks for the heads up on the dated profile ... it's fixed now.
1) I am running Lion, and not sure how or why I posted in the snow leopard category.
2) It says:
Filesystem                                Size   Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                              319G   202G   117G    64%    /
devfs                                     210k   210k     0B   100%    /dev
map -hosts                                  0B     0B     0B   100%    /net
map auto_home                               0B     0B     0B   100%    /home
localhost:/41KishPaycOkx6AG3BUu4C         319G   319G     0B   100%    /Volumes/MobileBackups
/dev/disk2s6                              750G   727G    23G    97%    /Volumes/Time

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Disk Utility not recognizing externals correctly

I have two external hard drives that are connected through a USB 2.0 hub. One is called "Photo Store" and the other is called "Photo Store Backup". When I load them, they both show up on the desktop properly. However, when I load Disk Utility, things show differently. They show as separate physical drives, but with the same name and all the same information (UUID, etc.). At the same time, it still shows the drives on the desktop properly.
What can I do to fix this?

My fix was to just reformat one of the drives. That changed the UUID which was conflicting between the two drives.

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?

Copy to disk utility not working right

My disk utility not work like it used to, it does not show up a disk when I put it in the drive. And I can't copy to disk anymore. A blank disk shows up as a removeable drive instead of a blank disk on the disk utility...??? I need to fix this so I can back-up my files and free up some space, help please?
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Hi-
The last time I saw a similar problem to yours, he was also running Panther. I advised reinstalling the 10.3.9 combo update, and his woes were gone.
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxcombinedupdate1039.html
Another thought is to check System Preferences/CD's & DVD'S, and check your selection nuder "When you insert a blank CD" (or DVD).
Running Disk Utility from the install disk, and repairing permissions is also another possible fix.
G4 AGP(450)Sawtooth Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2ghzPPC,1.62gbSDRAM, ATI9800, DVR-109,(IntHD)120&160,LaCie160,23"Cinema Display

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space-what does it really do?

Hey Forum,
I am using mac os 10.6.4 on my macbook and i have a doubting question for quite sometimes, what does disk utility erase free space feature really do? Does it gives you more free space? or what? I know it prevents the recovery of deleted files but i want to know what more it does and do not do? Like, now my hdd free space kept increasing and decreasing, by a few 100 mbs or 50mbs etc, so do i erase free space so to solve this problem? Ok, i do not only want to know does it solve the previous problem, but also the questions stated in the whole long paragraph i have wrote. If you know anything related to disk utility's erase free space, feel free to tell me!
Pls help me, I need you guys' help!
Thank you.
Regards
Ala.

Erase free space simply writes zeros over the space occupied by deleted files to prevent data recovery. That's all it does. It does not give you extra disk space.
Your disk space goes up and down a bit because the system creates temporary files and logs which take up space, such as the Safari cache. You can clear these file using a utility like Onyx (which is free)

Killed Disk Utility Erase Free Space. Now 0 available

(I erroneously posted this earlier to the Safari forum; posting here again)
I ran Disk Utility "Erase free space" on my iMac G5 250GB boot drive (I had about 130GB free). It ran for about 50 minutes, and got to "creating temp file" and then seemed to hang (thermometer didn't move for 20 minutes). So I force killed it. It seems to have left that "temp file" that takes up all available space since Disk Utility now reports 0 bytes available (and MS Entourage says insufficient free space and exits). I ran Finder "Secure empty trash" to delete 57 files with no error. But Disk Utility still says 0 bytes available.
First Aid "Verify Disk" reports no problems. "Verify Permissions" reports no problems.
Is there a way to regain my available space?
Thanks,
Ken

Restart did it. Thanks very much.
Ken

Disk Utility is reporting a fatal hardware error-S.M.A.R.T. status failing. Is there hope?

OS 10.5.8 on a 1.8 GHz Power PC G5. Installed Western Digital WD1002FAEX as a second internal hard drive. I also installd the jumper needed to slow HD down for this computer. Initialized and formated the HD was able to back up a large iPhoto file and am still able to acceass the file from the new HD. Now Disk Utility is reporting a fatal hardware error-S.M.A.R.T. status failing. Is there hope?

Is that on your first drive or the new one???
Only experience I had with SMART warning was that in less than 48 hrs it was dead for good.

OS X Disk Utility not recognizing Seagate 3TB drive in dock

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OS X Disk Utility not recognizing Seagate 3TB drive in dock
Been scouring the webs and can't quite figure this one out.
I just purchased a Seagate 3TB drive intending on using it for Backup.
Ended up plugging it into a dock and couldn't get it to show up in Disk Utility..
Interesting enough, I plugged this into an HP laptop and it displays just fine.
Anyone know the solution?
OS X 10.10 Yosemite, MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B05
SMC Version (system): 2.3f36

I hooked my internal as an external up to my Mom's Macbook Pro and it recognized my HD. I'm thinking it is something internal with the hook-up, which is awesome, because maybe I can actually fix it!!!! Any thoughts?

Tip on How to Monitor Disk Utility Erase Free Space

When you use the Disk Utility Erase Free Space option, it can sometimes appear to hang and the progress bar isn't always a help.
By accident, I discovered that if you run the Activity Monitor and select Disk Usage, you can in fact monitor progress. The Space Free will gradually tick down, sometimes as slowly as 100K/sec, then when it hits zero, it will quicklt tick back up. If you observe this, just let Disk Utility complete to avoid any issues; Activity Monitor makes it easier to be patiet about this.
Hope this helps.

Great tip, thanks for the post!

Disk Utility not showing same disk space as get info on HD

Hi,
My Macbook Pro was really slow and i did Repair Disk and it seems to work much better. the problem is that when i get info on my HD it shows me that there is 200 GB free but when i go to Disk Utility it only shows me that there is 73 GB free???
How can this be?
Please help. thanks

OmniDiskSweeper is a free utility that checks HD space.

Disk Utility: MediaKit reports no such partition

What is up with my disk?
On my brand new mac mini, I played around with resizing partitions in Disk Utility, it worked fine, and I eventually returned it to the original single-partition state.
Then, I ran boot camp, and told it to create a 10 GB partition.
Then, I installed Linux (64-bit Ubuntu) -- from the Linux installer I deleted the windows partition, and a zero-size partition before it, and put Linux swap and ext3 partitions in that space.
Now, from the mac side, if I try to shrink the boot partition again, I get the error "MediaKit reports no such partition".
Help? One potentially related anomaly is that Disk Utility shows my Linux ext3 partition format as "MS-DOS (FAT)" but the "fdisk" command correctly lists it as "Linux files*"
Another disturbing thing is that if I type "sudo pdisk" on the Macintosh command line, and give the 'L' command to list partitions on all disks, pdisk exits with the error "Floating point exception"
Here's the log from Disk Utility:
2007-11-04 00:09:19 -0400: Disk Utility started.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Preparing to partition disk: “Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: 3 volumes will be created
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 1
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Macintosh HD”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 90.1 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 2
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Linux Swap”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 488.3 MB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 3
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “DISK0S4”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 10.2 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : MS-DOS (FAT32)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Modifying partition map.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition failed for disk Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media MediaKit reports no such partition.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Partition complete.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Error with partition: MediaKit reports no such partition.

It doesn't sound like you've actually tried reformatting the entire drive, just resizing partitions. There is absolutely no reason why mountability should enter into the picture at all since you can't format a drive if any volumes are mounted.

Disk Utility no longer working correctly

I did a search and couldn't find a similar problem, so here goes.
I'm running OS 10.4.11 on a G4 PPC Dual 1.25 GHz.
I've done the regular updates the last several weeks:
QuickTime-7.5.5
iTunes- 8.0
Xserve RAID Driver Update- 1.0
Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 7- 1.0
Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update- 2.2
Security Update 2008-006 (PowerPC)- 1.0
Security Update 2008-007 (PowerPC)- 1.0
Migration and DVD/CD Sharing Update- 1.1
iTunes- 8.0.1
iPhoto Update- 7.1.5
Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update- 2.3
Safari- 3.2
iLife Support- 8.3.1
iTunes- 8.0.2
Safari- 3.2.1
Since the updating of the above, when launching Disk Utility, I get the spinning beachball as it tries to find my hard drives. It spins and spins and spins, but my drives don't show up.
Sometimes logging out and back in and then restarting will make DU work ok, but that can't be normal. It should work on each launch.
Is anyone having similar problems? Anyone know what the cause and solution may be?
Thanks in advance for any help, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi,
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, or things don't load/run, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates again, or even do an A&I if you have enough free disk space.
The combo update for PowerPC-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html
The combo update for Intel-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateintel.html
Repair Permissions before & after re-install, then reboot again each time.
If all the above do not resolve the problem, then it's time for an Archive & Install, which gives you a new OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Or, Might give a try with Applejack...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 5 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.

Disk Utility Not Repair Permissions on OS 10.4- Are there other options?

How can I repair repair HD permissions when disk utility does not work? I have a powerpc g4 that I installed a second internal HD and then system would not boot up. Evidently the second drive was damaged and as a result something affected my boot on my main drive. I removed the 2nd hard drive, reset pram, nvram, and would not boot. Tried the usual reset commands and no boot up. (gets to the gray block screen instructing to restart and stops). Restarted trying to get to safe mode by holding down "shift" key but only gets to blue screen and goes no further with spinning circle looking for something. Used my os x install disk and tried disk utility and s.m.a.r.t indicated was ok and ran repair disk and passed with no problems with the file structure. Then ran disk permissions and disk utility would not run or would not complete. I left the computer on overnight to see if it would repair the permissions. Then I went ahead and reinstalled os x 4 again on the HD drive using the save last boot option and restarted and the computer booted up. The desktop came up looking like the old one but most items would not work properly and very slow or would close automaticly. Looked in system information and found spaces between items. I closed the computer down by restart again to see if it would correct the problem but went back to gray screen instructing a reboot. Reboots brought me back to the same gray screen. Is this drive now not usable, can be zeroed out and resued, or just replaced? Where do I go from here....thanks

I installed a second internal HD and then system would not boot up. Evidently the second drive was damaged
What makes you think this? It's not very often that a new hard drive is defective out of the box. More likely is that it was connected improperly. Don't jump to conclusions without evidence.
Then I went ahead and reinstalled os x 4 again on the HD drive using the save last boot option
What? No such thing. Do you mean Archive & Install?
Is this drive now not usable, can be zeroed out and resued, or just replaced?
If Disk Utility says the drive is good, then we have to assume that's true. It appears that you've somehow corrupted your entire OS X installation, so whether or not you have a backup from before this happened, your best option now is to completely erase that hard drive and reinstall OS X from scratch, along with all the Software Updates to bring it to 10.4.11, as well as your third-party applications.
Then, if that doesn't work, that may be an indication of a drive problem, or even a system hardware problem.
To prevent this kind of thing from happening again, you need to invest in at least one external backup drive to use for a bootable backup of your entire hard disk, and keep it updated every day before you shut down your Mac. You can use SuperDuper ($27.95) or Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware) for those.

Disk Utility Not so Utile

So I verify my Hard Drive and it says the following after checking (exactly): Verifying volume “Macintosh HD” Invalid directory item count (It should be 43 instead of 42)
Checking Extended Attributes file. Checking volume bitmap. Checking volume information. Volume %@ needs to be repaired.",1) Macintosh HD Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit 1 HFS volume checked. Volume needs repair
The only glitch is the "Repair Disk" button is inoperative. So I trty to start from the original 10.3 OS that came with the iMac (3 discs) to use ITS Disk Utility and it won't start up from those disks. I either get a blinking folder when holding down "c", or I get a warning that says something like "this computer will not start up from this disk" likely because I have been upgrading Software (at Apple's request) since I started. I guess they forgot to upgrade Disk Utility. In any event, though this doesn't seem to affect the operation too much if at all, I still wonder why it won;t work properly (Disk Repair I mean)

Hi Lostdutchman, and a warm welcome to the forums!
So I trty to start from the original 10.3 OS that came with the iMac (3 discs) to use ITS Disk Utility and it won't start up from those disks
You're very lucky it didn't, you cannot use 10.3's Disk Utility from a 10.3 Install Disc to repair a 10.4 HD, it'll mess it up.
They did change DU in 10.3.9 to work on 10.4 Disks, but no 10.3 CDs came with 10.3.9.
Some things to try...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, Validate again, if it's OK this time, click on Repair Permissions, reboot.
Does it boot to Single User Mode, CMD+s keys at bootup, if so try...
/sbin/fsck -fy
Repeat until it shows no errors fixed.
(Space between fsck AND -fy important).
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Tough without the Tiger Disk problems, but try fsck...
To use fsck, you must run it from the command line. Unlike using your mouse to open an application to do something, you'll need to type a text command at the prompt (#) to tell fsck what to do. The Terminal application (/Applications/Utilities) and single-user mode are two examples of command-line interfaces in which you can type such commands. To use fsck:
1. Start up your computer in single-user mode to reach the command line. Hold CMD+s keys down at bootup. Note: If necessary, perform a forced restart as described in the Emergency Troubleshooting Handbook that came with your computer. On desktop computers, you can do this by pressing the reset/interrupt button (if there is one) or holding down the power button for several seconds. On portable computers, simultaneously press the Command-Control-power keys. If your portable computer doesn't restart with this method, you may need to reset the Power Manager.
2. At the command-line prompt, type /sbin/fsck -fy
(SPACE between fsck AND -fy important)
3. Press Return. fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found: 
The volume (nameofvolume) appears to be OK  If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message: *** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***   Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2 until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).
4. When fsck reports that your volume is OK, type reboot at the prompt and then press Return.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), & use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, reboot once more.
Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
But others that may work…
Drive Genius…
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php
TechTool Pro…
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

SSD - Disk Utility - Erase Free Space

Hi Community,
does the function in disk utility, which erases the free space by writing zeros into it, in context to a SSD drive the same like a block refresh which some drive vendor utilities does to increase the write performance? Or is a block which contains only zeros not really empty for the SSD controller?
Thx & Bye Tom

I am guessing a little here, but I suspect that "Trim" support ensures that data in free space can't be reaccessed once the files are deleted.
Another guess is that erasing the SSD free space may not be a great idea from the point of view of unnecessary writes and also filling the entire usable space up with what may appear to be data.
We are also discussing this subject in a German newsgroup and there we came to the result that the only way to inform the SSD-controller that the content of a specific block is invalid, is either to overwrite a specific logical address, so than the controller knows which physical blocks are invalid or to send the TRIM command.
To write zeros into the empty space is from the controllers point of view only content and will result in a full SSD drive afterwards. As longer I think about this as more I belief that this is correct and the use of the disk utility to refresh a SSD drive isn't the best idea... ;-)
Bye Tom

Disk Utility Not Reporting Space Correctly

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