I keep getting 'start up disk full' message on my MAC
I have a 250GB Imac and onlooking it tells me that I just have 50mb free. Looked on couple of sites for suggestions and did usual delete of trash and ran Omnisweeper. It said that disc was full but when I swept it only swept upto 124gb. I looked at the swept files and they all seem in order (pictures, music etc.) so it looks like for some reason my MAC has used 125GB of memory doing something but I can't find it.
Do I have a virus? I have Mcafree protection and ran a full scan but that didn't report any viruses - please can someone help?? I'm not over Mac savvi but if explained I usually can sort out so any help would be appreciated.
We never asked for the serial number. I've asked it be removed. It is a link to your personal information which others can use to search about you.
Remove McAfee. It is only necessary if you run Windows.
Early 2008 models were not Intel CoreDuos. They might a have been Core2Duo, but not CoreDuo.
Your model if the serial number is correct, which I verified with:
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
is indeed a Core2Duo Early 2008 model by serial number.
Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac to verify you have a Core2Duo and not a CoreDuo, otherwise you are getting your serial number and processor information from two sources that got wrongly combined.
An Early 2008 model can upgrade to Mavericks and Mountain Lion. It can also install any version of Snow Leopard that is retail, and not system specific with a Mac model name on it. So your issue with file space is likely due to something else you installed. Not a virus per say, but probably something that eats up a lot of temporary space. I would run the machine overnight in screen saver, not energy saver model to ensure the logfiles get properly cleaned up. I'd temporarily turn off any backup software. And the next time you shut down, make sure not to leave any applications open, by checking command-tab that the Finder is the only open application before shutting down or restarting.
Similar Messages
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Capacity available but still getting start up disk full message
Hi
I got the start up disk full message a few days ago. I did command i and ran Omnisweeper and deleted all the large files. I now have over 50% available capacity but my Mac is still running on slow and I still get the start up disk full message....and request to force quit.
Any thoughts on what I can do. Run idefrag?
Many thanks
ClaireWe never asked for the serial number. I've asked it be removed. It is a link to your personal information which others can use to search about you.
Remove McAfee. It is only necessary if you run Windows.
Early 2008 models were not Intel CoreDuos. They might a have been Core2Duo, but not CoreDuo.
Your model if the serial number is correct, which I verified with:
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
is indeed a Core2Duo Early 2008 model by serial number.
Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac to verify you have a Core2Duo and not a CoreDuo, otherwise you are getting your serial number and processor information from two sources that got wrongly combined.
An Early 2008 model can upgrade to Mavericks and Mountain Lion. It can also install any version of Snow Leopard that is retail, and not system specific with a Mac model name on it. So your issue with file space is likely due to something else you installed. Not a virus per say, but probably something that eats up a lot of temporary space. I would run the machine overnight in screen saver, not energy saver model to ensure the logfiles get properly cleaned up. I'd temporarily turn off any backup software. And the next time you shut down, make sure not to leave any applications open, by checking command-tab that the Finder is the only open application before shutting down or restarting. -
Upon start up I get a "start up disk full message, delete files". Now on startup I only get a blue screen. How do I get past the blue screen and how do I delete files.
That;s really not enough free space... you can use a tools such as OmniDiskSweeper to find out where your large files reside and begin pruning (or copying to an external if they're files that you want to keep).
One thing is certain - if you're going to continue your current usage you're certainly going to need to install a larger boot drive.
Clinton -
In cleaning up files based on a start up disk full message, i placed my music in a place where I tunes can't find it to play. any suggestion?
Provided that you moved the ENTIRE itunes folder...
Quit iTunes from under the iTunes menu (by the apple), or hold CMD and press Q. Then, hold Option on your keyboard and click the itunes icon on your dock. Continue to hold Option and you'll see a popup where you can select "Choose Library". Navigate to, and select, the itunes folder at its new location.
If you didn't move the entire itunes library folder, you'll have to be specific about what you did. -
Start up disk full message but has 40GB available
I'm getting the Startup disk full message so I checked the HD, it's 80GB, when I click 'Get Info' the available disk space changes frequently from 45GB available to 0 available. I deleted the trash and I know the disk is not full and has around 40GB available. I'm not sure why the HD available space changes often. Any idea??
Thanks.Assuming you have no CD in the drive, this does not sound good. Before doing anything further, I would highly recommend to remove the hard drive, set it in an external housing and see whether you can rescue your data when connecting theis HD to a different MAC.
Did you have FileFault turned on? -
New memory card installed but getting 'Start up disc full' message?
Running on an old Power Mac G4, 256 MB, I have recently got a new ipod and began filling my itunes when I get a 'start up disc full' message. I've successfully installed another identical 256 MB memory card which the computer is recognizing (now showing 512 MBs of memory) but after downloading another 1 or 2 CDs I'm back to 'start up disc full'. I know I have the correct memory card for my G4 but it isn't allowing me more memory. Any suggestions? Do I have to change something that isn't in my owners manual?
Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
You need more hard drive space. Although replacing the internal with another, larger drive is an option, it is easy to just add another drive. The G4, any model, can use up to 4 internal drives.
Some have size limits, so you need to tell us your G4 model. Use the "About this Mac" in the Apple menu on your desktop, and the following to ID your model:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58418
Another option is to buy an external firewire hard drive, so you can backup, and store files on it, freeing up space on your strtup drive. You really should have an external, anyways, so you have a backup, and don't lose any data if there is a problem.
Adding a hard drive is relatively easy. You can find Do It Yourself guides in the following:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31292 -
Start up disk full message/incomplete image
I just upgraded to iDVD 6 and am trying to burn a DVD. First time it rendered/encoded/burned all night and then some. I got a messsage that start up disk was full and to delete files. It resulted with an incomplete DVD (Moives were on, slide shows not). I freed disk space - Project info shows 2.8 of 4.2GB for project and 35.78GB available. I even used an older theme, thinking that might help. It churned for 12 hours+, and I got the same result (start up disk full/incomplete DVD). I have to deliver 20 copies of this by Friday. HELP!
don't know if this will help you at all but it helped me.. Using WhatSize - 10.3.9 at versiontracker allowed me to see where all my memory was going when I got that same disk full message. I have a new iMac and I didn't hink it was possible to be full up yet but a few of my undeleted iDVD slideshows were taking up gobs of memory... Make sure you empty the trash too... Once I made even more memory available I was able to burn again...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21149
iMac Intel Mac OS X (10.4.6) -
Photoshop - Scratch & Start Up Disk full messages
Hi all,
I am working on a large image file in Photoshop and as I know that this could cause my Macbook Air to run out of memory space I was saving the file onto my external hard drive. Unfortunately the Start Up Disk and Scratch Disk 'almost full' messages appeared. I saved what I could, closed all my apps/programs and checked out my memory situation on my Mac. I discovered I only have 9.6GB free and 36.14GB is being used by 'Other'. I have only music and iTunes movies on my computer and save all my work onto my external hard drive. I ran Disk Utility and it said there were no errors or anything to fix. I opened finder and selected 'All My Files' and there were 1,000+ of images I had just moved from iPhoto (there were off my iPhone) to my external hard drive. Some were even doubles. So I deleted all of these and ensured my trash was empty.
I do not know how to empty any more off my Mac as I cannot see any more files other than music. Please help, I've looked through lots of forums and found no solution.
Many thanks.Here are some general tips to keep your Mac's hard drive trim and slim as possible
You should never, EVER let a conputer 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 and/or a Final Cut user, both have its 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
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! -
Got a popup message 'startup disk full' - what do I do to create more space? My son tried to download some movies for me and there wasn't enough room...
"what do I do to create more space?"
Get rid of and/or archive files that take up space and/or you don't need. How much free space is left on the hard drive? -
My computer tells me that my start up disk is full. I have deleted my photos, videos & cookies. What else can I do to free up space?
Make sure you are emptying the trash as well. Otherwise download OmniDiskSweeper and run that. It will scan your files and let you know what is using up all the space. Might be a runaway log file as well.
-
Dear all,
What should I do? I keep getting the "startup disk full" message even when I already moved all my files and documents to an external hard disk.
Thanks a heap.For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning your files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal. -
I continue to get a "Start up disk full" message when I try to use iPhoto or iMovie. It then tells me to delete items, but it does not tell me how to do this.
Can some one walk me through it?
ThanksMark,
Evidently, you have filled your hard drive completely. You must get rid of some files. Make some determination as to what you can safely delete, then begin placing files in your trash, and emptying it.
You mention iMovie. DV footage, imported into iMovie, requires about 20 GBs of disk space per hour of footage. This could be the biggest consumer of your disk space. Placing an iMovie project file in the trash, then emptying it, might go a long way toward freeing up some space for you.
If you can't find anything that can be safely deleted, you're going to have to purchase an external hard drive, copy some file to it, then delete them from your internal hard drive. In fact, I recommend you purchase an external drive regardless. You can use it to make backups of your important data, as well as using it to free up disk space.
Scott -
Imac frozen at blue screen after i went into disk utilities and cleaned free space.
I tried holding down T key as it reboots
and i get a message. Start up disk full empty it how can one emptie it if you cant get past the blue screen?
to make matters worse we bought the IMAC of amazon uk on the 4/07/011 so what can we do?
please remember how frustrating it is when asking for help when the helper telling you to type something on the screen when its frozen
Tell us when you can type some instuctions to the software how do you get to the doss prompt so to speak to do this
Thanksi tried all this thanks
i can not get past blue screen and message Your disk is full it needs to be emptied Please not I cant proceed past this message.
no matter what you tell me
Am i right ok in thinking that
when i went into disk utilities and chose to clean my free space i left it over one hour to do its stuff
i came back and there was no progress bar just the box so i quit the program and when i opened mac mail the system just froze i forced quit mail rebooted and blue screen death
Now when free space is being cleaned is it the same as windows dose the utility write lots of 0 on the hard drive then rebbot its self to free the space
basicly is my hard drive full of 00000 is this why im getting this message because the process was interupted
I need to know if i need outside help i bought the computer on line on amazon uk what dose one do next -
Got an error message that said "start up disk full". On reboot, only got a blue screen. Can move mouse around and shutdown but that is it. Firewired it to another mac and cleaned off about 2 gigs of space. Still on reboot only getting blue screen. ???
Startup in Safe Mode.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212?viewlocale=en_US -
Why do I get a start-up disk full error message? I have 800 GB and have used approx. 249.
why do I get a start-up disk full error message? I have 800 GB and have used approx. 249.
Here's the appropriate answer:
Last login: Fri May 23 13:19:44 on console
[la-mes883094mn:~] joannhackett% diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 250.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *249.7 GB disk1
[la-mes883094mn:~] joannhackett% diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 098533C8-3936-4FB1-BCB8-2FE94E6E0500
=========================================================
Name: Macintosh HD
Status: Online
Size: 250006216704 B (250.0 GB)
Free Space: 16777216 B (16.8 MB)
|
+-< Physical Volume 9518DA81-D7D6-4D76-8B4D-1F235D8AEA3A
| ----------------------------------------------------
| Index: 0
| Disk: disk0s2
| Status: Online
| Size: 250006216704 B (250.0 GB)
|
+-> Logical Volume Family C1A37CDE-6624-4094-A29A-2BB706380979
Encryption Status: Unlocked
Encryption Type: AES-XTS
Conversion Status: Complete
Conversion Direction: -none-
Has Encrypted Extents: Yes
Fully Secure: Yes
Passphrase Required: Yes
|
+-> Logical Volume 7175D310-4566-455D-9C50-1BD4CCF257CE
Disk: disk1
Status: Online
Size (Total): 249670668288 B (249.7 GB)
Conversion Progress: -none-
Revertible: Yes (unlock and decryption required)
LV Name: Macintosh HD
Volume Name: Macintosh HD
Content Hint: Apple_HFS
[la-mes883094mn:~] joannhackett% mount
/dev/disk1 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
map -fstab on /Network/Servers (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
localhost:/4OM-aHuM-mGML9PliXARLB on /Volumes/MobileBackups (mtmfs, nosuid, read-only, nobrowse)
[la-mes883094mn:~] joannhackett% df -m /
Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk1 238104 227599 10255 96% 58329357 2625394 96% /
[la-mes883094mn:~] joannhackett%
As for the 251 disk, what is this? I assume it's the wrong kind of memory? Thanks, Jo Ann
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