My Mac just filled the startup disc by itself, overnight!

Wierdest thing. I had 6gb of space when I went to bed and woke up to an error message stating my startup disc was almost full. I only had 96mb or something. Any ideas?

Simplest thing would be to do a search and find every file that was modified or created since the day before the problem. Make sure that you are searching everything, including system folders and libraries, etc (as I think that spotlight by default only searches for certain file types to avoid the clutter)
Also, did you leave an email program running? perhaps someone sent you a massive email?
Just some suggestions that came to the top of my head.

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How do I move music files from the startup disc to iTunes in the other internal hard disk os 10.5.8?

How do I move music files from the startup disc to iTunes in the other internal hard disk os 10.5.8?
The music I want to move was in iTunes but is now just files. I had to reinstall a new iTunes and lost all my old music.
Thank you!

That article is about using your iPod as an external hard drive, to move files from one computer to another computer. It is not related to your question.
You can't use iTunes to move song files from iPod to computer, except for songs you purchased from the iTunes Store (and you can also re-download purchases). However, there are third-party methods and utilities that can move song files from iPod to computer. If you do a Google search on something like "ipod transfer," you should get some links.
Once the song files are on your current computer, add them to that computer's iTunes library by dragging the files (or folder containing the files) to the iTunes window. After confirming everything is there (and fixing the data issue you mentioned) you can sync the iPod. You may want to do a Restore on the iPod, if it might have a data corruption issue, which will erase the iPod's hard drive, re-install the latest software, and set it to defautl settings.

I interrupted a software update and my macbook pro will not boot. I have tried to reboot using the startup disc, I have tried to verify the disc, and repair the disc. It tells me I need to erase and reformat the hard drive then reinstall the operating sys

I interrupted a software update and my macbook pro will not boot. I have tried to reboot using the startup disc, I have tried to verify the disc, and repair the disc. It tells me I need to erase and reformat the hard drive then reinstall the operating system. I do not have a back up of all my applications, my garageband music and other things. I also do not have time capsule set up on this machine, but I do have a 2 TB time capsule.
Is there anyway to back up this corrupted drive so I can restore my applications later?

There's an old saying. If you don't have a backup disc, then there must be nothing important to backup. That's just lesson #1. Lesson #2 is to never interrupt a software update. Not a good thing.
OK, I'm sure you know this. It just upsets me to read your story, knowing you have a lot of important stuff on your hard drive, and didn't use time machine.
You're pretty much in a bad place. My only hope for you is to boot to your Installation Disc, then using disk utility see if you can save the internal hard drive (by fixing what can be fixed). You might be able to see your user folder and some of your apps. I wouldn't even consider copying the library, because who knows what's been corrupted in there.
Good luck.

Error running maverick upgrade: You need 4.93 GB of available space to download OS X Mavericks. Remove items from your startup disk to increase available space. where do i find the startup disc?

MAC Pro, error:You need 4.93 GB of available space to download OS X Mavericks. Remove items from your startup disk to increase available space.
Where do I locate the startup disc?

The startup disk is your hard drive, where you store all your programs and data. Probably named Mac HD in Finder. Read this:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24370185#24370185

I'm fairly new to Mac, just got the iWeb program, I dont have and can not get a Mobile Me account, does this mean I can use iWeb?

I'm fairly new to Mac, just got the iWeb program, I dont have and can not get a Mobile Me account, does this mean I cant use iWeb?

iWeb gives you two other options for publishing...
http://www.iwebformusicians.com/iWeb/Publish-Website.html
"I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link."

HT201364 How can I reduce space on the startup disc to enable the download of Mavericks?

How can I reduce space on the startup disc to enable the download of Mavericks? I have enough overall disc space but the update won't download and tells me to reduce "startup" disc space.

I have enough overall disc space but the update won't download and tells me to reduce "startup" disc space.
How much free space do you have?
This warning usually indicates, that your free disk space is critically low.
Empty you Trash, delete files that you do not need at all, and move large media files, like iPhoto libraries or videos to an external drive.

I have removed all movies to Seagate portable drive to free up space on the startup disc and can confirm all can not be found on my computer, however it still shows as being there when i check storage ???

I have removed all movies to Seagate portable drive to free up space on the startup disc and can confirm they are no longer on my computer after doing a search, i trashed them and then emptied the trash, however they still show as being there when i check storage on the startup disc???????, can anyone advise what is happening here?

Try reindexing spotlight on the Startup drive.
Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support

Disc Utility always set wrong permissions of the startup disc

The permissions of the startup disc should be "drwxrwxr-t 39 root admin", right?
But everytime I repair my permissions with disc utility I get the (german) message:
Benutzer unterscheidet sich für ., Soll-Wert: 501, Ist-Wert: 0
Die Gruppe unterscheidet sich für ., Soll-Wert: 501, Ist-Wert: 80.
Die Zugriffsrechte unterscheiden sich für ., Soll-Wert: drwxr-xr-x , Ist-Wert: drwxrwxr-t .
And the permissions of the startup disc are set to:
drwxr-xr-x 39 Nomis101 Nomis101
(I've read that out with "$ ls -ld /")
Than I "repair" the permissions with "$ chmod 1775 /". And next time I use disc utility I have the same again.
I've repaired the permissions in single user mode, I've booted from the install DVD and reseted my ACLs, I've removed my ACLs. But nothing seems to help.
Sometimes I also have the issue that I cannot move any file on my desktop anymore or that I have suddenly no write permissions in the folder /Volumes/Macintosh HD
I suspect MacPorts 1.7 or Mercurial as the malefactor, because the issues accumulate after I've done something with MacPorts (or Mercurial). But I'am not sure with that.

{quote:title=V.K. wrote in another thread...:}If I'm not mistaken you told me once a while ago how to modify permissions database which seems to be required there.{quote}
Hmm, that's actually a bit of a tough one - Sorry, but I think it's beyond me.
My understanding of the permissions database consists of only what I have been able to piece together from tinkering, and while I have been able to edit individual entries and have "repair permissions" behave as expected with the edits, "/" is a bit different.
Basically, every time something is installed that results in an update to the permissions database, entries are added, i.e. the entry for a file isn't edited but rather a whole new entry is added. That applies to a given file in the update, as well as every folder on the path to that file. Since installations are pretty much all rooted in "/", that means a new entry for "/" is created every time any installer updates the receipt database, and other things may add entries as well -- I have 88 entries for "/" in there on my system. This does't display all of the entries, but a slightly more user-friendly way is to view most of them is to use:<pre>
pkgutil --file-info /</pre>
I haven't dug that deeply, but I don't know what determines which entry will be used during the actual permissions verification / repair operation (it's been a while but I seem to recall that it wasn't as simple a matter as "most recent", for example), so figuring out which one to edit might be a challenge.
And there are cases like "/" where there are entries in the database, but as you pointed out, that seem to be ignored when repairing of verifying permissions, and I have no idea what flags the system to ignore those.
Interestingly, of the 88 entries on my system, 83 call for "1775" permissions, but 5 of them (mostly "Safari" updates but also the "BaseSystem" package) actually say the permissions should be "1755"...
I think for the OP, the bigger issue is trying to figure out (and stopping) whatever it is that keeps wrecking security by changing the ownership to the user...

Why is there a question mark on the Startup Disc folder in System Preferences?

Why is there a question mark on the Startup Disc folder in System Preferences?
Thanks in advance.

Because there's a permissions issue with the application, or it's been moved somewhere which isn't accessible to the second user account, or its entry in the Dock plist on the second account is corrupt, in which case it needs to be located in the Applications folder and dragged to the Dock.
(61349)

Ok so my MacBook Pro has begun saying the startup disc is full after importing photos, so I deleted done and the message went away. now my computer won't go passed the login page it gets stuck after I login and goes to a grey screen. Can anyone help?

Startup disc full

Step 1
The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. 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.

TS2570 I have this problem too I cannot boot from the startup disc and the install DVD theat came with the computer cannot be seen by the MacBook and refuses to eject van anybody help? I cannot open in Console as the error message I get says files are in

Grey screen appears at startup the install disc is not recognised & will not eject every boot is met with grey screen revolving apple logo&folder&circle with diagonal and console error says start up item is in the trash also cannot access external FireWire drive please help. I also have a full copy of leopard if I can get the original install disc out perhaps it is corrupt tia

john13th wrote:
Ok, so this was done by Apple by purpose?
To clarify slightly what others have said, Apple licences the grey system discs that come with a Mac for use only with that specific Mac, not for use with any other Mac, even one of exactly the same model. So using them with any other Mac violates the terms of the license & should be avoided. The installer on the grey discs enforces this in part by checking the model of the Mac when it is run & refusing to install anything if the Mac is not the correct model. It displays a warning message that the disc cannot be used with that Mac & the only available option is to quit the installer.
Beyond that, while the grey discs may in fact include & install drivers for the hardware in other, older Mac models, they cannot include ones for Macs using hardware newer than the release date of the Mac they came with. In this case, the other Mac can't even start up from the installer disc & it freezes with a kernel panic before it can run the installer. This seems to be what happened here.

Hello mac community! My startup disc is almost full and I need to make space. What sort of stuff gets stored as "other"? once i know this, I can make some space. many thanks susan

Hi
My mac air startup disc is almost full. What does mac store as "other"? this category is taking up more than half the space on the disc
many thanks susan

For more on "Other" and very helpful tips:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html
Hope this helps.
1. Empty Trash.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677
2. Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
    Select "Library" from the dropdown.
    Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
    Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Empty Trash. Restart.
3. Repair Disk
    Steps 1 through 7
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836

I need the startup discs for a G5, where do I get them?

We purchased an older G5 and do not have the discs that came with it. My MacBook Pro is to advanced. Help. We can only use it in Safe Mode right now....

Call AppleCare.
That said:
1. If they can give you the original discs, that's ideal if you need access to Mac OS 9 applications 9 (pre-2001).
2. If they can give you the equivalent of Mac OS X 10.5 retail, you can upgrade to 10.5.8 combo, and that's the end of the line for that machine. The 10.5 discs that come with another Mac will not work with the machine.
3. Make sure they don't try to give you discs for another Mac. Read the serial number off the foot of the machine to help them, or at least the EMC#.

Need to figure out how to remove an unknown admin password on a mac. used the install disc with not luck. tried some commands in single user mode, no luck.

need to figure out how to remove an unknown admin password on a mac.
used the install disc with not luck. tried some commands in single user mode, no luck.

need to figure out how to remove an unknown admin password on a mac.
used the install disc with not luck. tried some commands in single user mode, no luck.

HELP, my mac just hangs during startup

I tried to turn my computer off and it froze, i shut it off by the power butten.... I went to turn it on and i hear the startup bong, then i see the gray screen with the apple on it, the the little circle thing just goes around and around, it never goes anyplace else. I tried putting my os disk in...same thing happens. I can't get anyplace...what can i do???
HELP PLEASE

OK...update took it to the service center...it was a software issue, everything on my time machine was AWESOME...so they reinstalled a fresh copy of leopard and sent me on my way...I came home and reinstalled everything on my time machine. WHEW - we are back up and running and everything came back.
I swear - that time machine just paid for itself and is not consider PRICELESS.. I think everyone should have one.
so I just wanted to post an update

My Mac just filled the startup disc by itself, overnight!

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