My HD icon on the desktop is showing far more free space than I actually have.

I use a 2011 17" MBP with OS X Lion (750GB HD, 8GB RAM, 2.2GHz i7) and have noticed recently (only since I bought the new OS) that the Hard Drive icon on my desktop shows far more free space available than I know I have. It shows 488GB free of 497GB (with 250GB on a partition for Windows 7 Enterprise) and I know I have about 250-300GB worth of stuff. I've checked several times to ensure it's still there and all my files still work so it doesn't seem to be deleting things randomly. I just want to know if it's a calculation bug or if there's something else wrong. Thanks for any help in advance!

In case anyone reads this wondering if there's a solution, there is: turn off automatic time machine backups, and restart your computer. It turns out I had about 80GB worth of data stacking up between physical backups to external HDs. Apparently it counts as free space because it can be over-written when necessary, hence an elated free space count.
I also did a disk repair on the partition which OS X is on, which fixed some "minor logging issues" but I don't think that made a difference because nothing happened until I cleared the backup cache by turning off time machine. By the way, once I turned off time machine my HD free space sky-rocketed to 576GB of 497GB which freaked me out but don't worry, this is fixed once you restart.

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Several encrypted .dmg files show much more free space that the total size of the file.

I have several encrypted .dmg files on my macbook air running OS X 10.10.1 I have had them for years with no problems. Now suddenly, in the finder, at the bottom of the finder window where it shows the number of items and free space for a disk, it shows more free space than the full size of the .dmg file. Typically it will show about 200MB for a 100 MB file. Obviously, this is a bug, but I can find no information or discussions about it anywhere.
Does anyone have the same problem? Any ideas how to fix it?

Thanks for the ideas. Unfortunately, it didn't work.
I rebuilt the spotlight index as suggested.
I tried it twice, rebooting the computer a couple of time along the way.
Below you can see the actual file as it occurs in the finder in its unopened form.
Now, below here is what the finder reports at the bottom of the finder window when the file is opened and added as a virtual disk.
Note that the total file size is 102.5 Mb
Yet the finder says it has 234.5 Mb free!
The actual size of the files on the disk add up to about 60 Mb
This occurs with several similar dmg files.
Any other ideas or experiences would be appreciated.

Is it possible to have my navigation bar on the side? I see where a sidebar can have the bookmarks, but I don't see how to get the navigation bar to be on the side. I want more vertical space than horizontal so that pages appear longer.

Running Win7

I don't know if there is an extension that can place the location bar in the sidebar.<br />
You can look at the Autohide extension if you need more room.
Autohide: http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide/
See also http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide/autohidehelp.htm

Restored 40 GB ipod only shows 20 GB free space

I recently had to restore my 40 GB ipod. It works fine now, but I notice that even before I had put any music on the wiped pod I had "used" 20 GB of space. I've started putting my music back on the ipod, but it tells me I've used 20 GB more space than I actually have. What is taking up the space here? I ran the updater already. Is there any way to format it and regain my 20 GB? Can I do this without wiping it once again?? Thanks so much for any help.

As a general rule, the actual reported capacity of a hard drive is about 7% less than the advertised capacity.
The discrepancy you are noticing is due to the differences in the way that hard drive manufacturers calculate disk capacity and how it is reported by the operating system.
HD manufacturers use a decimal measurement to calculate disk capacity. They consider a gigabyte (GB) to be 1 billion bytes.
The decimal measurement would be 1000 x 1000 x 1000 which equals 1,000,000,000 bytes. For example, an 80GB hard drive means that the disk has an unformatted capacity of 80 billion bytes. (80,000,000,000 bytes.)
Since computers "speak" binary, not decimal... the operating system calculates a gigbyte (GB) differently.
The binary measurement would be 1024 x 1024 x 1024 which equals 1,073,741,824 bytes.
Using the example above, an 80GB hard drive would be reported by the operating system as 74.5GB.
80,0000,0000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 74.5GB
1GB iPod = 930MB
2GB iPod = 1.8GB
4GB iPod = 3.7GB
20GB iPod = 18.6GB
30GB iPod = 27.9GB
40GB iPod = 37.2GB
60GB iPod = 55.9GB
Since the iPod operating system and extras also take up some space (very little... not 8GB!), you will be left with slightly less that the above stated capacity for your content.
Apple also explains the above in this article:
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My MacBook Pro shows the "Macintosh HD" icon on the desktop but my MacBook Air does NOT have the icon on it's desktop. Is this normal? If not, how do I remount the MacBook Air disk icon on the desktop?

My MacBook Pro shows the "Macintosh HD" icon on the desktop but my MacBook Air does NOT show the icon on it's desktop. Is this normal? If not, how do I remount the MacBook Air "Macintosh HD" icon on it's desktop?

Is it showing in the Finder?
If so, then this is normal.
Cheers,
GB

How do I delete an old version of card star when there is no icon on the desktop?

I received a notice at the App Store that an update for Cardstar was available. This is on my Gen 1 iPad running iOS 6.1.3. I clicked the upgrade button but the progress bar never indicated progress. Cardstar is listed in Settings, but there is no icon on the desktop. I speculate that during an Cloud synch with my iPhone, that this alias now shows up on the iPad. I tried shutting down. Can't find any way to delete from Settings. On the App Store it shows up as active on my list of needed updates. There, the Cardstar icon shows the progress bar with no progress and the "Installing" button is grayed out. I am sure that I didnt install it on any of my devices other than my iPhone.

Thanks. You are right...by the serial number it is a Gen 2. There seems to be a solution to my problem on the Cardstar website. I will try that.
Thanks again.

What happens when the external icon jumps on top on the hard drive icon on the desktop?

The external drive icon jumped to the hard drive icon on the desktop and after that happen the iMAC started running slow. Not sure how that happen or what is happening to the iMAC after it happen. All my applications are running and launching slow. Also, when I tried moving files to the external drive I'll get a "error code -36". When I looked up the error message it says that the file is corrupted even though I could still open them. How can I fix this problem and not lose any files? Thanks for any help.

RRFS has probably got the answer basically - but the combined contents of the two drives has probably maxed out the drive space on Macintosh HD, meaning the OS can't use virtual memory properly.
Open a Finder window and read the available space at the bottom.
If you have copied the drive, it should show as a folder under Macintosh HD in the Finder.
I hesitate to tell you to delete the whole folder as that may be too much for Finder to cope with. Open the folder and delete files and folders in small chunks, emptying the trash each time before doing the next..
Meanwhile, if you go to the Finder preferences and uncheck the item for Hard Disks in the desktop list, then move the icon for the external away from that corner before re-enabling the Hard disk option.
You may need to go to View options from the right-click menu on desktop and set 'arrange by' to 'none' in order to get the icon to stay where you want it.

How to change the size of icons on the desktop?

Please help to know how to change the size of the icons on the desktop. How do I access the font family for the desktop if that's the way to do it?
Thanks

Click on the Finder/Desktop
From the View menu > Show View options.
This is as large as they go
If your having trouble seeing when web browsing I have a alternative for that.
Firefox + NoSquint + Theme Font & Size Changer

Mavericks strike two - now I have a Documents icon on the desktop *&^%$

Thank you Mavericks.
I was saving a photo in Photoshop and the pop-up save window showed "Documents" and I saved it there. I normally do that and later on I transfer those photos to other folders.
I closed Photoshop and noticed a new icon on the desktop called Documents. I diligently sent it to **** (to the trash) and when I tried to open the picture or any other file in Documents from within Favorites sidebar in Finder a window popped up saying the file could not be opened because it was in the trash.
I could see the Documents icon in Favorites and, within it, I could see all the files but could not open them.
I went to Trash and brought back Documents to the desktop. Only then could I open the files using Finder's Documents in Favorites.
I don't know where that Documents icon came from. Oh, and by the way my Photoshop folder in the sidebar's Favorites, just below Documents, vanished. I had to replace it.
I'm still dizzy from going back and forth with this blasted Mavericks, after having upgraded from Lion, with which I never had any issue.
I promised myself never again upgrade. Never. Not until this Mid-2011 27-incher crumbles from old age and I'm forced to buy a new one.
I just won't learn.
Roxy

I have no clue as to what that is without more information. A colored icon, clear, anything inside of the round icon???
Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons.
See if the icon goes away

All the icons in the desktop, taskbar and start menu are messed up

I installed Windows 7 5 days ago.   Somehow all the icons in the desktop, the taskbar and the start menu have been replaced by a notepad icon. Additonally, When I click the Start button, the captions for the different icons are like "calculator.lnk", "snipping tool.lnk", etc. If I click on any of these options in the menu, instead of opening the application, it opens notepad. As if notepad had become the default application for all the links.
Why did this happen, and how can I work around it?   Looks like this is a nice bug to fix in SP1.

Hi SnowflakeCoder,
According to your problem description, it seems that the icon cache and the file associations are damaged.
I suggest we perform the following troubleshooting suggestions to check the issue.
Suggestion 1: Rebuild icon cache
=========================
1. Click “Start” and open “Computer”.
2. Click “Organize” on the Tool bar, and choose “Folder and Search Options”.
3. Then click the “View” tab, check to select the “Show hidden files and folders option”, and click “OK”.
4. After that, enter the following directory and press Enter.
%userprofile%\AppData\local
5. Find the “IconCache.db” file, and rename it as “IconCache.db.old”.
6. Close the window, and restart the computer.
Suggestion 2: Restore the Start Menu via previous versions
=========================
1.    Click “Start” and open “Computer”.
2.    Enter the following directory and press Enter.
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
3. Right-click the “Programs” folder, and then click “Restore Previous Versions”.
4. You'll see a list of available previous versions of the folder.
5. Select a previous version of the file or folder you would to restore, click “Restore” button.
6. Please click “Restore” if the window titled Previous Versions prompts.
7. Please click “OK” when the file or the folder has been successfully restored to the previous version.
8. Click “OK” again.
If both suggestions cannot fix the issue, you may also try the System Restore which should be the easiest way to fix this issue.
Suggestion 3: Run System Restore
=========================
1. Click “Start”, type “System Restore” (without quotation marks) in the Search bar, and then click “System Restore” in the “Programs” list.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click “Continue”.
2. In the “System Restore” dialog box, click “Choose a different restore point”, and then click “Next”.
3. In the list of restore points, click a restore point that was created before you began to experience the issue, and then click “Next”.
4. Click “Finish”.
The computer restarts, and the system files and settings are returned to the state that they were in at the time that the restore point was created.
Please check the result again.

Hiding Icons On The Desktop

I would like to know if it's possible to hid the icons on the desktop (temporarily) so they don't distract me during my "interfacing"....

This works if you want to hide whatever is showing right when you run the command. However, if you want new items placed on the desktop to be hidden as well, you'll need to run the command again. Fortunately, you can use a very simple AppleScript and Folder Action to have this done automatically.
Open up the Script Editor located in:
+/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app+
Paste in the following script:
+on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items+
+do shell script ("chflags hidden ~/Desktop/*")+
+end adding folder items to+
Click the Compile button. Then, click File > Save As... and name it +Hide Desktop+ and save it in the following directory:
+~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts+
(In case you're not familiar, the ~ stands for your Home directory.)
You may need to create the Scripts and Folder Scripts folders if they do not already exist.
Now that you're all set up, you just need to enable the Folder Action. Open Folder Actions Setup located in:
/Applications/AppleScript/Folder Actions Setup.app
Add your Desktop folder by clicking on the + sign in the lower left of the window and selecting your Desktop. Then, select the Hide Desktop.scpt file from the presented list.
You're all done! You can enable and disable the Folder Action whenever you want from the Folder Actions Setup. If you disable it and want to unhide your Desktop files, simply open the terminal and run the command:
+chflags nohidden ~/Desktop/*+
You could even create another ActionScript which was just:
+do shell script ("chflags nohidden ~/Desktop/*")+
You could compile and save that somewhere and just run it whenever you disabled the Hide Desktop Folder Action.

How can I delete icons from the desktop? every time I open a application (e.g. skype) the icon goes to the desktop

how can I delete icons from the desktop? every time I open a application (e.g. skype) the icon goes to the desktop

to remove the HD icon
In Finder's Preferences pane, in the General tab, uncheck "Hard disks" under "Show these items on the Desktop" to clear away the icon.

What is the circled number one under my drive icon on the desktop? I recently hooked up an external LaCie drive and hope I didn't partition my main drive somehow by mistake.

I noticed after installing an external LaCie Drive, that a circled number 1 appears under my drive icon on the desktop that was never there before. I have a iMac G5. I go to Disk Utility at times to erase or burn a disk. Could I have somehow partitioned my hard drive or what / why is that number appearing or is it normal? Thanks and I hope I didn't screw up the drive cause I'm a newbie and would hate to have to delete and reinstall. Could I have a tired machine? I have lots of GB's left and machine at times acts strange like will record something and default it to iMovie slide show unless I wasn't careful what file was open at the time. Can you tell me what the number means?

Try renameing it, but you might also check this...
n Finder's Menu, select Go menu>Go to Folder, and go to "/volumes". (no quotes)
Volumes is where an alias to your hard drive ("/" at boot) is placed at startup, and where all the "mount points" for auxiliary drives are created for you to access them. This folder is normally hidden from view.
Drives with an extra 1 on the end have a side-effect of mounting a drive with the same name as the system already think exists. Try trashing the duplicates with a 1 or 2 if there are no real files in them, and reboot.
If it does contain data...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2474

How do I stop my MacBook removing all my icons from the desktop ?

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Hi Matt
After I create say a word document, file it on my desktop and then shut down my machine. The next time I open up the MacBook the file icon has been removed from the desktop. I can still retrieve the file in a folder labeled with the month I created it. But why has the OS removed it from the desktop and how can I stop it happening?
It happens to alias icons as well!
Regards

How do I stop my MacBook clearing the icons off the desktop when I switch off

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Hi Matt
After I create say a word document, file it on my desktop and then shut down my machine. The next time I open up the MacBook the file icon has been removed from the desktop. I can still retrieve the file in a folder labeled with the month I created it. But why has the OS removed it from the desktop and how can I stop it happening?
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My HD icon on the desktop is showing far more free space than I actually have.

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