Disk Utility - Partition free space?

Hi all
I'm wondering if Disk Utility (or similar) has the functionality to help me out here...
I have a 120gig fw external drive, currently it has only the one partition of 80gigs on it, the rest is free space (don't ask...).
I would like to format the other 31gigs as a useable partition without erasing the 50-odd gigs of music files that are on the first volume.
If this can't be done, that's really no big issue, I'll just use my iPod as a holding space while I repartition the external, but if it can, then this will be a valuable learning opportunity for me & I'll be happy to know the way around.
Thanks in advance

4069
Hi Dr_Dodgy,
You cannot do that with Disk Utility.
There is a third-party application for partitioning a hard drive without losing anything, so I guess this app would be able to do that too.
Not sure, was it "iPartition"? I don't know it anyway, so I can say for sure only about DU.
Axl

Similar Messages

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

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 Erase Free Space Option Nonexistant

Have an iMAC 1 GHZ PowerPC G4 256 MB DDR SDRAM OS 10.3.9. According to various google results I should be able to call up Disk Utilities>Partition>Erase>Erase Free Space. Its not there. (Its exactly where it should be on a nearby G5 running 10.5.8.).
It will allow me to erase the entire disk or either of two partitions but the Erase Free Space isn't just grayed out, it is completely missing.
1) The hard drive was partitioned at some point in the past I think to get around some admin thing. One partition has 51 out of 60 GB filled, the other has 12.4 of 16.3 GB filled.
2) Don't ask about the admins, my Entourage has been broken for 9 months - I am not joking.
3) My computer knowledge is spotty - you've been warned.
Help!

Try starting the iMac in Target Disk Mode while attached to one of your newer computers with a firewire cable. This basically makes the iMac an external hard drive. I've not tried this but you should then be able to use a newer version of Disk Utility on that drive.
[How to use FireWire target disk mode|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661] includes description of hardware and software requirements.
[What to do if your Mac doesn't enter FireWire Target Disk Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75414], also read about [Open Firmware Password Protection|http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/openfirmwarepassword.html] which can disable Target Disk Mode.
I'm not a technician but I don't think it "misses" areas, it's just more a matter of covering up what was written there before. Think of it as you write something on a piece of paper, then erase it and write something down in the same space. If you look closely you can see what was written there before. Now erase that again and write something else. It'll be pretty difficult to make out what was written there the very first time. Do that 7 times and it will be very, very, very difficult. Do that 32 times and it will be impossible. However, all that erasing and writing will take its toll on the paper and take a long time. I'd say anything more than a erase once would really have to be justified by very sensitive data. Anybody wanting to recover the data would have to use pretty specialized equipment.

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space - Creating Temporary File Freeze

I used "Erase Free Space" with Disk Utility after trashing several files I no longer wanted on the hard drive or recovered. I used "Zero Out Deleted Files" option. It took over 12 hours before an error message appeared "Your start up disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files." I thought that was what I was doing. Disk Utility continued but got stuck on "Creating Temporary File." I force quit Disk Utility after several more hours. I had to manually shut down the computer because the restart command wouldn't work. It rebooted and appears to be OK. Evidently, this temporary file consumes significant amounts of disk space. This is an older iMac with 10.4.11 (18 GHz PowerPC G5) - I know, pretty old but I still have OS 9 on it and several files I need to extract before I trash it.
1. Should I do nothing? The iMac seems to be working fine.
2. How do I know if this Temporary File exists and consuming space? Spotlight doesn't find it. Where is it?
3. Is my start up disk in fact almost full? How would I know that?
Thanks!

Then I would not do any secure erasing. It's exceptionally time consuming and unnecessary. Before you take it in for recycling boot it from your OS X installer DVD. Do this:
Drive Partition and Format
1. 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 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. 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
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 Security 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 can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
A one-pass Zero Data option is all that is required to prevent access to your erased files.

Disk Utility - seeing free space

Hello,
Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere; I Google'd this extensively but couldn't find an answer.
I partitioned a 1TB external HDD of mine with approximately 500GB of "free space" using Disk Utility. After unmounting the device and then remounting, I could not see the "free space" anymore, and couldn't find any way to format that space.
Please advise, and thanks in advance!

If you partitioned the drive with only one 500 GB volume and the remainder as "free space" then you do not have a second volume. Use Disk Utility to add another partition to the drive in the area that is marked as free space. In DU free space simply means unallocated space - not available for use.

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space

Hey Forum,
I am using mac snow leopard on my macbook and I wanted to erase the free space on my hard drive, so is the zero-out free space enough, or do I need the 7-pass erase free space. I just wanted more disk space, thats it. So can anyone tell me what are each options for? And do i need to 7-pass erase if i just wanted more disk space?
I await your favorable replies.
Thank you.
Regards.
Ala.

As The hatter says, the erase free space option has nothing to do with creating more free disk space -- the space is already free.
If you are confused about this, just open Disk Utility to the "Erase" tab & click the purple question mark at the bottom of the window. This will open Disk Utility Help to the topic *Erasing disks*. Refer to the last subject, *Securely erasing empty space* & if necessary click the link below it to go to the help topic *Erasing free disk space*, which explains this function in more detail.
FWIW, should you ever need to use this security function, a one pass secure erase is probably adequate to make the data unrecoverable.

7-pass, or zero out-Disk Utility Erase Free Space

Hey Forum,
I want to clear my erase free space on disk utility. And I am confused, whether to use 7-pass or zero-out? Any suggestions which one to use. Is zero out enough, or is 7-pass too much, any suggestions of whether to use either of them is appreciated, thank you.
Ala.
P.S. What are zero-out, 7-pass, and the 35 thing for and their differences?

There is no need to post the same question twice, especially in the same forum.
Regarding what you can find with Google, an overly simplified or out of date treatment of the topic may lead you to the wrong conclusions. For example, the DoD 5220-22M standard is obsolete (& never recommended a 7 pass erase to begin with) & the 35 pass erase was intended for old, pre-2001 drives.
For modern ATA drives like you will find in any Mac capable of running Snow Leopard, one or at most a few zero data passes will do all any software-based secure erase method can do.
If you need verification of that, refer to the Epilogue section of Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory, the seminal paper on the subject by the author of the 35 pass method.

My HD in disk utility shows free space of 200GB and is greyed out. I am unable to do anything with this free space.

I dual booted my mac until recently with refind. It all worked fine until recently when i tried to remove the ubuntu partion as I did not need it any more.
Unfortunately, I am now not able to do anything to the 200GB of free space that shows in disk utility. Please help.
I use Yosemite now.

worked it out. thanks:)

Disk Utility: erasing free space

I read a recent magazine feature about file security and, based on its advice, clicked the Erase Free Space button in Disk Utility to overwrite the free space on my hard drive.
Everything ran smoothly until the last minute, when the countdown switched to "Creating Temporary File". After five minutes, a dialog box appeared warning me that the start-up disk was almost full.
I'm not concerned that I might lose material on the start-up disk since I have an external drive as a complete bootable back-up of the hard drive. But:
1. What's is being created in this temporary file and why?
2. How do I get Disk Utility just to erase the free space next time and not bother with the temporary file that seems to fill all the space (and more) that has just been cleaned?
Thanks in advance.
PowerMac G4 867MhZ Mac OS X (10.4.6) iGB RAM
PowerMac G4 867MhZ Mac OS X (10.4.6) iGB RAM

You're Welcome Norman!
I'm happy that I could help!
Also, I notice that you have not marked your topic as answered, nor utilized the Helpful or Solved options. That may be intentional, but, if you are not aware of the benefits, of using that function, here is some information.
When you mark the appropriate posts as Helpful (5 pts) 2 available, or Solved (10 pts) 1 available, you are Thanking the contributors, by awarding them points.
In threads with multiple replies, it also alerts other readers, to which answers may have been helpful, or solved the issue.
This info, and more, can be viewed by clicking on
? Help & Terms of Use, located under your login name, on all "Discussions" pages.
Specifically What are question answers?.
The Helpful and Solved buttons, that award points, are to the left of the Reply button in each response.
These are not the same as these Which do not award points, as explained Here.
Thank You, for considering extending the courtesy, of awarding stars in Discussions, as this is not a requirement, nor mandatory.
ali b

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space - Creating Temporary File Freezes

BDAqua: I tried responding to your reply to my original posting but I get an error message that I was not authorized to reply. I logged out. I can't find the original posting in my Activity so I approached from the link in my e-mail saying you had replied. Now it says the area is restricted. What's up with that?
Rod
Here's the original post:
I used "Erase Free Space" with Disk Utility after trashing several files I no longer wanted on the hard drive or recovered. I used "Zero Out Deleted Files" option. It took over 12 hours before an error message appeared "Your start up disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files." I thought that was what I was doing. Disk Utility continued but got stuck on "Creating Temporary File." I force quit Disk Utility after several more hours. I had to manually shut down the computer because the restart command wouldn't work. It rebooted and appears to be OK. Evidently, this temporary file consumes significant amounts of disk space. This is an older iMac with 10.4.11 (18 GHz PowerPC G5) - I know, pretty old but I still have OS 9 on it and several files I need to extract before I trash it.
1. Should I do nothing? The iMac seems to be working fine.
2. How do I know if this Temporary File exists and consuming space? Spotlight doesn't find it. Where is it?
3. Is my start up disk in fact almost full? How would I know that?

Here's what I tried to say in my response that I wasn't authorize to make:
I can't seem to reply to your response BD . . . says I'm not authorize . . . so I'll try to reply to my original post.
Thanks BD for your reply. Here's the info on the drive: 1.3 TB capacity with 1,017 GB available. Eventually I will recycle the computer at Best Buy who guarantees the hard drive will be erased. I just want to get all my files off first. I'll just do another Erase Free Space and see, as you suggest, if there are any files to be zeroed out. Maybe there aren't any. I've extracted most of what I want but am debating how to move the entire iPhoto library to an external drive so I can access it from my Mavericks machine. Can I just drag and drop the iPhoto Library, or do I need to export it somehow?

Wiping free space on Lion using Disk Utility Erase Free Space

I'm using Lion (OS X 10.7.3) on a late 2011 MacBook Pro.
FileVault is active.
I tried to erase free space on my HD using Disk Utility. It started by creating a temporary file and presented me with an indeterminate indicator-bar (one that looks like a barber pole). Activity Monitor showed an average CPU utilization of 2% by Disk Utility but disk activity was normal and usage stayed constant.
I left this process on for about twelve hours but Activity Monitor showed nothing new and the DU indicator-bar stayed indeterminate with Creating Temporary File.
I tried to skip this DU process and was presented with another indeterminate bar: Skipping. Again, AM showed nothing new so I force-quit DU and used sudo find / -type f -size +500M to see if any temporary files were created. I did not find any new files.
I rebooted and tried it from the terminal: sudo diskutil secureErase freespace 1 /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD. The result was the same: No progress.
BTW, if you run the above command, make sure you include the freespace portion. If you don't, diskutil will happily start securely erasing the entire disk.
Not being able to wipe free space using DU may have something to do with FileVault being active. Can someone confirm this?
What I love about working on a Mac is I have a Unix-based computer that I can tinker with. So I was able to wipe free space manually: dd if=/dev/urandom of=~/DELETEME followed by srm -s ~/DELETEME.
Hope this helps someone.

Bidit Mazumder wrote:
BTW, if you run the above command, make sure you include the freespace portion. If you don't, diskutil will happily start securely erasing the entire disk.
Why we don't mention such terminal commands around here.

Trouble with Disk Utility, Erase Free Space

Hello,
I have (had) a 120GB HD w/ about 53GB free. I had trashed some large files and thought I'd try the "Erase free space" option in Disk Utility.
I ran it per the help file: seleced Macintosh HD, Erase Free Space, using the "Zero Out Deleted Files" option. It got started, created a temp file, then told me it would take about 31 minutes. As it neared completion, I was presented w/ a Dialog: Out of Free space - or smthg to that effect.
Per the help file, which said I might be presented w/ such a warning but that I could ignore it, I clicked "OK".
Then the computer chugged along for another hour or so, never finishing. Finally I clicked the "Skip" button, and it chugged along for another 30 min. or so, never making any progress in "skippin" in the status bar. I finally just quit Disk Utility.
Now I'm showing a completely full HD. I've restared, but the same thing. I've tried to run Erase Free Space again, but it gives an error "Could not create temp file" - I'm assuming b/c it needs free space to do the task, and it thinks there is none. So...
...How do I get my free space back?
Thanks in advance...

There's probably a huge temp file somewhere, maybe in a folder in your Trash. Do a search for a huge (multi-GB?) file (it might be an image file) that looks suspicious.
The only reason to use erase is for security purposes, and doesn't do anything in the normal course of computer usage. Erase actually writes data to your remaining file space (as you have discovered with no space left) and then trashes that data (or not, in your case).
P.S. In future you should post this kind of topic as a question so people will know it is something that needs answering rather than being a comment.
Message was edited by: Limnos

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 - Partition free space?

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