Half full hard drive became 100% full suddenly! HELP

I have a 160gig harddrive in my MBP. I always keep my internal HD as empty and organized as possible. It was only 70 gigs full this morning, I went out to lunch, came back, and suddenly, the hard drive is 100% full!
I have no idea why it did that, after a reboot, I could not reach the desktop after I sign in. So I booted off the snow leopard os disk, and did a check in my disk utility. Says it's OK.
After, I signed on in Safe Mode, checked my backup drive (using Carbon Copy Cloner), and it didn't seem to duplicate, not even full like my internal drive.
Does anyone know what the cause for this may be? Should I just wipe out my drive, and restore my drive from my backup (I'm a little hesitant to do that at the moment, becuase I haven't backed up for a week, and there is still new work I don't want to be wiped out). Thanks for any help in advance!

Use Disk Inventory X or OmniDiskSweeper to find out what made your hard drive full.

Similar Messages

  • My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

    My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

    You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2.  USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head.   The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps.   Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead.  The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps.  You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus.  Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it. 
    Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance.  A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
    USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
    Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters".  Your images must be managed.  You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them.  But someone has to manage them.  If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge.  If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters.  If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
    Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.)  There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world:  (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  Hard drives are cheap.  Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

  • My Mac Book  hard drive is nearly full. How do I move  iTunes music, etc folders to a different location on an external hard drive and still access as if on my Mac?

    My Mac Book  hard drive is nearly full. How do I move  iTunes music, etc folders to a different location on an external hard drive and still access as if on my Mac?

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

  • Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was 2012.  how do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?

    Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was in 2012.  How do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user? 
    I entered Iphoto for my user and only photo up until 2012 were in the library.  I thought the restore would do the incremental Time Machine backups too.....
    Running 10.8.2

    It usually means you are running Mavericks but have an earlier version of iPhoto. Open the App Store and upgrade your version of iPhoto to the Mavericks version.
    The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.
    iWork and iLife for Mac come free with every new Mac purchase. Existing users running Mavericks can update their apps for free from the Mac App Store℠. iWork and iLife for iOS are available for free from the App Store℠ for any new device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. GarageBand for Mac and iOS are free for all OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 users. Additional GarageBand instruments and sounds are available for a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 for each platform.

  • Restore iTunes library from Time Machine, after full hard drive wipe

    I had to do a full hard drive wipe on my MBP running 10.6.6, so I made a full Time Machine backup before hand. I reinstalled os x (10.6.3) and used migration assistant to restore my files from the Time Machine backup.
    Most of this process has been painless, however, when I open iTunes it's empty. I have all the music files, iTunes Library.itdb, iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library Genius.itdb. Is there a way to restore my previous iTunes library with these files? I feel like this should be a pretty basic thing to do but I haven't found much/any documentation of it online. Any help would be much appreciated.

    Take the files that you list and the iTunes music folder from the TM b/u and drag them to the iTunes folder. To put it in simpler terms - drag the iTunes folder from the TM to the same location on the internal HD.
    By default the path should be HD>User>Your Account>Music>iTunes(your iTunes files are here)>iTunes Music (your music files are here)
    MJ

  • Trouble with slow Macbook Air. I have first generation MacBook Air and have a hard time keeping hard drive from being full. Right now, I have almost 5 gigs available, but mac is slow and I keep getting color wheel when I use Mail. Any suggestions?

    Trouble with slow Macbook Air. I have first generation MacBook Air and have a hard time keeping hard drive from being full. After trashing many docs, I have almost 5 gigs available, but mac is slow and I keep getting color wheel when I use Mail. I'd like to install Lion, but now I'm afraid it will slow down my machine even further. Do I have enough free hard disc space? Is Mail problem related to free hard disc space? Thanks for your help!

    7gb of free disc space is required to install Lion.  Read this about how to free up disc space: http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html.  Also, advice on how to speed up your mac: http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/25_ways_speed_your_mac

  • Full hard drive, but i am backed up and want to clear it

    my 80gb disk is full, but i have a 250gb external drive. is there a way to clear the drive on my computer, but have the other information on the external via time machine?

    Hi,
    You have a couple of options. You can delete some of the older back ups on the Time Machine drive and drop some of your data onto it. Just open the drive in a finder window and select and delete the back ups. Or, erase and partition the Time Machine drive to give yourself some space to play with, which would be my preferred suggestion. You really only need double your hard drive size for Time Machine, so if you give yourself a 50GB partition for data it'll be OK. Or, start backing up your data to DVD (DL if possible) to give yourself some hard drive space. And, the final option would be to get a bigger ext HD. At least 500GB partitioned would be the best bet.
    Also, you can manage Time Machine, by turning it off and only backing up weekly or fortnightly. It won't stop TM sucking up all your ext drive space, but it will slow it down.
    Finally, using your Mac with a full hard drive is a recipe for disaster. Whatever you decide to do you should do it asap.
    Hope this helps.
    SR

  • I bought a movie on itunes and when i try to play it on my apple tv it says the device is not autorized.  My apple tv is the older one with an actual hard drive that is full. Tha apple tv is logged into my itunes account.

    I bought a movie on itunes and when i try to play it on my apple tv it says the device is not autorized.  My apple tv is the older one with an actual hard drive that is full. Tha apple tv is logged into my itunes account.

    ATV2 does not have permanent storage. The rental is flushed when the device is turned off or other content accessed. You would need to use your computer to rent (and home-share to ATV) if you wish to store for a later time.

  • Creating room on full hard drive

    Creating room on full hard drive: suggestions for best item to remove.

    Restart in Safe Mode:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US
    Empty the trash.
    - Delete all files in the Downloads folder.
      Empty the Trash.
    - Start iPhoto.  Empty its trash.
    - Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
        Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
        Select "Library" from the drop down menu.
        Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
        Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    - Empty the Trash.
    - Restart.
    - Re-index your system disk:
      http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409
    Backup:
    Run a Time Machine (or other) backup since you are about to delete and move files and you may need to recover from any inadvertent mistakes or decisions.
    Deleting and Offloading files:
    Use OmniDiskSweeper find large folders and files to delete or offload.  If you are running 10.8 or 10.9 download it from http://www.omnigroup.com/more.  If you are running 10.6.8 or 10.7 down it from  https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7402/omnidisksweeper.  Do not touch any system files.  Do not offload files onto a Time Machine disk.   Do not offload your entire user folder. Do not rely on restoring files from Time Machine; delete only those files you never want to see again.   Do delete or offload seldom use folders/files in your user folder.  Remember to empty the trash after trashing the files.
     > System Preferences > Time Machine > Options… > Remove the offload HD name from the exclusions list.  Now both your system disk and your external offload disk will be backed up onto your Time Machine disk.
    From: "More ways to save space if you have a spare partition or second hard drive."
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
    - Compress and archive old files.
    - Clean up system logs and temporary files.
    - Uninstall Mac OS 9.
    - Move your iTunes Music folder to another disk or partition.
    - Move your iPhoto Library folder to another disk or partition.
    (Includes instructions on moving subsets of the libraries.)
    Additional references on freeing disk space:
    http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
    http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

  • IMac hard drive getting too full

    Hi,
    I have a beautiful 2008 27" iMac, which has served me well for years.  I still love it and would like to keep using it.  It came with a 500 GB hard drive.  I have recently purchased and connected a 2 TB "My Passport" external drive.  I have been doing back-ups through Time Machine.
    Unfortunately, my hard drive has 400 GB of family photos and movie clips, thanks to our awesome iPhones. 
    Is there a way that I can move all of these pictures and movies to my external drive, while taking them off of my desktop iMac?
    I don't want to take the chance of losing my photos.  I have a friend who bought extra space on the iCloud;  however, she told me once she filled that space, the older pictures and movies started dropping off in a "first in, first out" manner, losing them permanently (which hurts a lot, who wants to lose those precious children's baby pictures).
    My computer has a DVD writer built in, but it doesn't seem to recognize blank writable DVD's anymore.  I'm assuming it is no longer working.  I tried to access it using "Disk Utility" but my computer is not recognizing the "Superdrive" (it's grey'ed out and not selectable).
    I just upgraded my iMac to Yosemite, and I have a maxed out RAM of 4 GB.  I'm hoping by freeing up space on my computer, I will be able to put many more pictures to come as well as potentially speed it up.
    Please help.  Any suggestions?
    NickG

    Here are some general tips to keep your Mac's hard drive trim and slim as possible
    You should never, EVER let a computer 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 Mac's Trash icon in the Dock?
    If you use iPhoto or Aperture, both have 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 are an iMovie/ Final Cut user, both apps have their own individual Trash location that needs to be emptied, too!
    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.
    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.
    To find other large files, download an app called Omni Disk Sweeper.
    http://www.omnigroup.com/more
    Also, Find Any File
    http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/
    Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
    http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php
    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.
    Moving iTunes library
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
    Moving iPhoto library
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
    Moving iMovie projects folder
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2289
    Good Luck!

  • How to stop films from automatically downloading when my hard drive is to full?

    My Hard drive is near full.  Every time I connect to itunes, it automaticly tries todownload previously purchased films, which cause my computer to freeze up.  How do I stop it from downloading stuff I don't want or need?

    In preferences, Store try turning off Always Check for available downloads
    And Download pre-orders when available.
    Also underneath this uncheck all the Automatic Option Downloads

  • Hi Apple, Is there a way to move some of my less frequently used music out of my iTunes Library to free up some space on my full hard drive but with the option to re-add it later?

    Hi Apple, Is there a way to move some of my less frequently used music out of my iTunes Library to free up some space on my full hard drive but with the option to re-add it later?

    Hi Apple, Is there a way to move some of my less frequently used music out of my iTunes Library to free up some space on my full hard drive but with the option to re-add it later?

  • My video playback out...every video shakes/flashes/doesn't play right. What's wrong? I thought the hard drive was too full, but I just deleted 125gigs, rebooted and it still flashes and doesn't play videos. This is true for youtube, ads, foxnews videos...

    My video playback out...every video shakes/flashes/doesn't play right. What's wrong? I thought the hard drive was too full, but I just deleted 125gigs, rebooted and it still flashes and doesn't play videos. This is true for youtube, ads, foxnews videos...

    Update: The iBook can play any 480p video and higher if I encode them with DivX and in AVI format. But of course this is not compatible with my iPhone 4. At least I can shrink my library now and get away from the full MPEG-2s. I don't get why I can't use Apple's h264 though. There has to be a setting I am missing. The sample Apple h264 videos from the days of Tiger worked flawlessly on my iBook when it was new so the CPU must be capable of decoding it. I really can't understand this.
    Also, since I made my videos in English for my family, I had to create soft subtitles for my wife's Chinese family, and I can't get players like QT with perian or MPlayerX to sync them properly to an AVI encoded with DivX, they only sync well with the iPhone 4 m4v/mp4 formatted files I made. This is a real pickle.
    So now I may need three or four copies of each video, LOL. I need to hardcode the subtitles if I want to use AVI to playback on older machines, and keep the mp4 file for the iDevices too, while keeping higher quality h264 videos for my American relatives...
    If h264 is compatible with my iBook, what is the proper encoding settings? Must I dramatically lower the settings or frame rate? I can settle on 2 copies of each video that way. One iBook/G4/eMac compatible video that syncs correctly with my srt soft subs, and another version that works well with my iPhone 4 and iPad.
    All in all, I will end up with more than 3 or 4 version of each video. On my late G5 dual core I have the full 720-1080p uncompressed master files. On my i5 iMac I have the h264 compressed versions for distribution, and lower versions for my iDevices. Now I need to keep either full MPEG-2 files for the iBook to play, or convert to older formats like DivX AVI for our family's legacy machines. I am running out of hard disk space quick now, LOL.
    Is there an easier way?

  • Hard drive at 100% - now I can't boot.

    I have done something stupid.
    Forgetting that my internal hard drive was nearly full, I was moving some iMovie footage from an external drive when I accidentally filled my iMacs drive.
    The Finder window said 0kb free, and then my aging old iMac (April 09) decided to lock up and freeze.
    I hard power cycled using the button on the back for about 5sec, but now it wont boot past the apple logo.
    Is there a way to emergency boot to move off enough data so I can boot properly and back everything that hasnt been backed up before I retire this old workhorse?

    Try to boot your Mac in Safe Mode by Pressing and Holding the Shift key while Booting and see if your Mac turn's ON and once you are Logged in to your User Account try to Backup as much Data as you can on your External Hard Drive and then free up some space on the Internal Hard Drive (keep atleast 20% free space for a Good Performance) and after removing the unwanted Data from the Internal HD on your Mac Restart your Mac and see if it boots in Normal Mode.

  • A library on my hard drive became corrupted, so I over-wrote it from an external hard drive.  When I access the library now on my hard drive, many of the images are vertical, and cannot be rotated other than one at a time.  Ideas to correct this?

    A library on my hard drive became corrupted, so I over-wrote it from an external hard drive.  When I now access the library on my hard drive, many of the images are vertical, and cannot be rotated other than one at a time.  Ideas to correct this?

    You had already done "Repair" and "Rebuild"?  These usually takes scores of minutes or hours.
    Does the Library on your external drive work from the external drive?  Navigate to it in Finder and double-click the name.
    If it does, delete the problem Library, empty the System Trash, reboot, Verify your system disk using Disk Utility (and might as well repair permissions while you're at it), reboot, test the external drive Library once more to confirm it works properly, then close it and copy the Library to your system drive.  When the copying is done, double-click the Library (now on the system drive) and see what you get.

Maybe you are looking for