Erase free space issues?

I am using fully updated Yosemite on two iMacs, one office, one home, and recently began having this problem: When I use Disk Utility to erase free space, the window first says it is creating a temporary file and then very quickly starts the erase process with the progress bar. This takes hours, so I usually "fire it and forget it" — let it run overnight or when I will be away from my desk. Occasionally I'll stay at my desk or return after a while and note that the erasing seems to be progressing normally. When I find that the process is finished, I see a message to the effect that the erasing couldn't be completed because the program could not create a temporary file.
Has anyone else encountered this contradiction? Is it an erroneous error message or has the free space really not been erased? Thank you.

Erasing Free Space Will Definitely Help Me and My Situation. Plus I've deleted or transferred files to an External HD, a ton of files(About 75%). And still the hard drive is reading FULL. The Erase Free Space Option just isn't working for some odd reason. So Erase Free Space Is Definitely What I'm Looking For. Any think you can think of, why it's not working properly?? And thanks for you speedy response also.

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HT3680 Erase Free Space Issues!!

When I Try To Erase Free Space On My HD, The Process Fails Repeatedly. With Any Option I Choose, Like 7 Pass, It Takes 2 Minutes For The Entire Process. And That's Obviously Wrong. I've Tried Almost Everything. And My Disk Is Reading FULL. It's Limiting Me Big Time. And Also Hindering Me From Upgrading To Mountain Lion. Anyone Out There, That Can Help Me With This Problem ASAP, Please??

Erasing Free Space Will Definitely Help Me and My Situation. Plus I've deleted or transferred files to an External HD, a ton of files(About 75%). And still the hard drive is reading FULL. The Erase Free Space Option just isn't working for some odd reason. So Erase Free Space Is Definitely What I'm Looking For. Any think you can think of, why it's not working properly?? And thanks for you speedy response also.

'erase free space' not secure - it doesn't seem to work?

Just wanted to point out that the erase free space option in Mountain Lion does not seem to work, at all.
A week ago I ran erase free space on my primary data drive then later, out of curiosity, I ran an inexpensive third party recovery program on the disk just to see what happened. Interestingly enough the recovery software was able to find and restore files that I had deleted over a year ago.
This has me thinking, so today I tried it again, only with a 7 pass erase this time. Nope, same thing. After a 7 pass erase (erase free space) this low end, less than $35 recovery software turns up tons of files, everything from stuff I just deleted a few days ago to stuff from over a year ago.
If I'm doing something wrong I would love for someone to point it out to me. Not that I'm toting state secrets or anything on my mac, but still - my privacy is important to me and I assume it is to others.
I'd encourage folks to try this out for themselves.
My set up is a 2011 macbook pro with an SSD as the boot drive, I've got a second harddrive installed in the optical bay and this is where my home folder lives. The secondary drive is the drive where I'm running erase free space.
The only thing that I can think of is that, even though the button is not greyed out, maybe I need to be booted to recovery in order to succesfully run erase free space on system drives?
Any input would be greatly appreciated, otherwise this seems like a pretty ugly security lapse on the part of Apple. Imagine if you're selling your machine and secure erasing before turnign it over to its new owner - and the new owner can run a $35 dollar recovery program and access everything on your machine.
Not good.

Thanks for your response, William.
I think that the issue may have to do with being booted to the system while trying to erase free space. I ran a 7 pass erase free space on a 1TB external Lacie drive this afternoon, the operation took a bit over 6 hours to complete and recovery sofatware is turning up nothing.
This is in contrast to the main drive, which my original post referenced, which is a 500gb 7200 rpm internal drive. A 7 pass secure erase took less than 5 minutes to complete - so, even though the drive is 1/2 the size, there's obviously something not right with the 7 minutes time to complete.
Tomorrow I'm going to try either booting to another account (which doesn't utilize this partcular disk) or booting to recovery and seeing what happens.
I have a feeling that this will solve the problem - I'll post back tomorrow evening.

Time Capsule full after a "Erase Free Space" using Disk Utility

Hello,
I am facing some issues related to my Time Capsule.
Reviewing my past, I had a lot of backups on this, using Time Machine and it always worked pretty well. But after deleting some backups manually to reclaim disk space, this was not exactly freeing it.
Searching in the forum here, I saw that I could mount the backup sparsebundle image and map it into the Disk Utility. This always worked greatly too both for disk checking and reclaiming the space back.
The problem starts on the last Friday when I performed the operation again, but it started using the whole free space that I had and did not give it back.
Studying the case I found that it creates a temporary folder to store the file it creates to write the byte 0 on the disk. This file actually resides in the sparsebundle image and therefore I can see the file with 200GB, for example, in the Finder, this is a split in bands (8MB) just like the backup is. After the disk gets full, the Disk Utility should delete the file properly and give me back the space safely.
Right now my Time Capsule has 0 byte free and I can't do anything on it beyond redo the the Erase Free Space operation. When I do it, it starts writing the temporary file again and the problem repeats itself.
I know that if I backup the data and really erase the disk, I'll get it back, but this is not an option for me because I want a smart solution for this.
The only thing that changed between when it worked and now is the 10.5.6 update that I made and I'd like that it's not the root of the issue.
Is there any suggestion or general stuff I could do to fix it?
Did anybody already face the same issue?
If anyone needs more details to help me out of this, just let me know.
Thanks and regards,
Eduardo

Just another thing to add, I'd like a good solution for this as the redo operation from Disk Utility takes around 2 days and then it just "dies".

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!
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ali b

Erase free space filled my free space..help !

I used DU erase free space on 'zero data option'
I had 50/50% free /used space on 80 Gb int HD
after that I had no free space ...
I started from OSX disc, ran DU, repair disk, which fixed 2 issues but
left 'Invalid leaf record' 'should be 13 not 2001'
Last line ... '1 HFS volumne repaired'
'1 volumne could not be repaired'
This HD was NOT partioned..
I guess DU wrote in my free space but didn't record that fact correctly ?
It's running but slow slow
Any idea what to do ?
Thanks

Do you have a full backup of your system and data? If not back up as much as you can, if you can. After that that, I would stop using it.
You need to free up space on your hard drive to allow it run properly. Then it may be able to be repaired. But I wouldn't want to try without knowing how backed up you are, or not.
Let us know.
-mj
[email protected]

Erase Free Space vs Reformat Hard Drive

I am getting ready to sell my computer. In the past I have had troubles when I reformatted my hard and then reinstalled the OS. If I use "Erase Free Space" from the Disk Utility and choose 7 pass overwrite should I be confident that all deleted personal information will be securely removed?
Thanks
12" PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 768 MB RAM, Superdrive

It would be simpler, not to mention much, much faster, to do an Erase and Install of OS X. If you've had problems with the hard drive in the past, then I suggest doing the following before installing:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disk. 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.)
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. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. 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, if supported.) 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, if supported.) 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.
After formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Now proceed with the OS X installation. When the installation has completed DO NOT RESTART. Instead simply shut down the computer. When the new owner starts up the computer it will automatically start up in the Setup Assistant as if new out of the box.
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Help please - message after using the Erase Free Space function in Disk Ut

Please help. I've been using my Mac Mini for 6 months and decided I wanted to securely erase previously deleted files, and found the Erase Free Space facility in Disk Utilities. So I chose the option "7-pass Erase of deleted files", and left my Mac Mini to do its business.
At the end, I got the message that my startup disk is full, but ignored that message because I understand that's normal when free space has been deleted.
After doing a Restart, things seem to be running smoothly, but I have a Warning message which reads
Warning. The following disk images failed to mount:
Image: EFTFile1.sparseimage Reason: corrupt image.
What does this mean, please, and what do I have to do, if anything?
I'm completely new to this, so please explain clearly.
Thanks everyone!!

Hi again, i've resolved the problem, thanks. It was my inexperience that was helping confuse the issue.
Sorry to have taken your time. Thanks again for your input.

Disk Utility: Disk Scrubbing ("Erase Free Space")

Hi,
I've logged in case 113969827 the following observation:
In a Macbook 10.5.6 using Disk Utility to Erase Free Space
(Disk Utility / Erase / Erase Free Space) with 7-Pass or 35-Pass
Erase on a / partition with 113GB free of 200GB of a 232GB drive
which is Boot Camp partitioned, the other 32GB going to a
flawlessly-running Windows XP, rarely used, the following
issue happens...
The free space (87gb) goes to 0gb.
Has anyone else seen this?
Thanks.
Message was edited by: cracraft

Hey,
Talked with Apple in Texas, Indiana and Silicon Valley on this one
as well Josh...
The bottom line executed so far is:
Shutdown Mac OS X
mount -uw
/usr/sbin/fsck -fy
shutdown -r now
Finder
Disk Utility
Erase / Erase Freespace
Select least secure option and run
Wait until Disk Utility is final (no timing messages)
The above completed okay and your advice to "wait it out"
was right on the ball.
Next, I need to do Erase / Erase Freespace 7-Pass overnight
and then a 35-Pass tomorrow.
The reason I want to do all this heavy "assurance" of deleting
is that if I am required to send this notebook back for the cpu
fan issue, then I certainly want privacy for my disk. But on second
thought, upon receipt, I could just go to the local Apple store and
swap out the disk from one and place it in the new frame and
bootup, retaining my data.
Anyway, thanks for your input today as well as Richard in Indiana,
Matt in Texas, Matt in Silicon Valley.
(There were no errors in the fsck btw though it did say the FS was
modified... odd.)
Stuart
P.S. One would want to do more than the drag-and-drop to the Trash
with Empty Trash btw. I don't think those are assured from undelete
by savvy wizards or other operatives... whereas, 35-pass certainly is
completely secure, assuming the implementation at Apple doesn't
have a backdoor of some kind...
I'll keep this thread updated after the 7-pass / 35-pass which I am
sure just requires extra patience, as you indicated. Thanks!

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!

I made a dumb decision to 'Erase Free Space' on my drive. I now have no free space, I realize because it wrote 0's over all my free space. Is there a way to undo this??? Help please I can't save any documents now! Thanks in advance all, it is truly apprec

I made a dumb decision to 'Erase Free Space' on my drive. I now have no free space, I realize because it wrote 0's over all my free space. Is there a way to undo this??? Help please I can't save any documents now! Thanks in advance all, it is truly appreciated. how can find the hidden temporary files using the terminal what do i type in?

It's more likely a failed Erase Free Space, which creates a huge temporary file; that's why it looks like you have no more available drive space. You can recover from this. See these links
https://discussions.apple.com/message/10938738#10938738
http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/quickie/recovering_from_a_failed_secure_erase_fre e_space
Post back if you need any help with this.

In restoring my mac mini to factory specs-what is considered "free space" as in the question of erasing free space.

When you go to do a factory restore what is erasing "free space?
Plus, I have no Command keys on my keyboard-how to do Command R without a Command Key?
Carol

CarolF5 wrote:
When you go to do a factory restore what is erasing "free space?
Don't bother with that option, unless you are going to sell your computer and want to be sure that your data can't be recovered.
To be more specific it securely erases the unoccupied space of your hard drive, leaving the rest of your data intact.
I have no Command keys on my keyboard-how to do Command R without a Command Key?
You mean you have a PC keyboard? If that is the case the Command key translates to the key with the Windows flag.
The Alt key is the Option key on an Apple keyboard.

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!

Erase free space function of Disk Utility

Hi all,
I've read some of the discussions about the problems that can result from using Disk Utility to permanently delete items that have been emptied from the Trash (and which were not "securely" emptied). Before I use the Disk Utility function, I'd appreciate some advice:
1. I have an iBook G4, running Mac OS 10.4.11. My hard disk has a capacity of 55 GB with 30 GB available. Does the capacity available matter, and is mine sufficient?
2. Will I be given an option on overwriting the files 0, 7, or 35 times, and should I choose 7?
3. How long is this operation likely to take?
4. Shall I just start the operation and then not touch the computer for a few hours, or overnight, and hope for the best??
5. A final question (a stupid one, I hope!) -- only those files which were put in the trash will be deleted, right?? Not anything else?!
I am quite worried about taking the step because, if things go wrong, I won't have a means of contacting the Apple support forum as this is the only computer in our household.
I am planning on giving this iBook to a nephew in six months or so, and am gradually cleaning it up for that purpose. But I'm not ready to "zero it out" entirely and I am hoping not to lose anything currently on my hard drive following the "erase free space" operation, or to have to reboot from the original CDs.
If the operation is successful, I will then remember to always use the "Secure Empty Trash" option when deleting future files. I'm assuming that, if I do that, I should have no concerns about giving the laptop away -- correct?
As you can tell, I'm not very computer savvy, and I'd be very grateful for help. Thank you!

Open Disk Utility, Highlight your drive on the left, then on the right bottom you'll see Verify Disk & below that Repair Disk grayed out because you can't reopair the HD yo're booted from, if it does need Repair...
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, 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. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a 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 completes

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.

Erase free space issues?

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