Need Help Recovering Hard Drive Space on Disk Utility

I recently wanted to resize my Boot Camp hard drive partition as I did not need it to be 194 gb. In the process I screwed something up and now that space that was once my Boot Camp Partition is now "free space." My Mac Partition still says that I have 305 gb left and I am unsure how to expand this partition to get back that "grey" space. I've tried using Boot Camp Assistant, starting with Command+R after the "chime," and restoring my OSX (not completely however).
I need help in getting back this missing space. It seems that I have looked everywhere and although people seem to have a similar issue I can't figure it out.
Would restoring Mountain Lion completely by using a USB jump drive solve this problem? I have an external hard drive that uses Time Machine to back up my MacBook so a complete restore shouldn't be an issue.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
P.S. This is what my disk utility currently looks like...

You can try to use Boot Camp Assistant to completely remove the Windows partition but it might not work.
Simple fact is once you setup a Windows partition you can't fool with it at all, that is unless you use some add on program specifically designed to do that on a Mac computer. If you need to resize the Windows partition you first need to use BCA and remove the partition completely and then recreate it at the new size you want and reinstall Windows.
You might have to use Time Machine and backup your Mac partition then repartition the complete drive and then restore from that Time Machine backup. Then setup the Windows partition and reinstall Windows.

Similar Messages

I need help recovering hard-drive space...

I was doing a 35-pass-erase on my Macbook Pro for a "clean" install of Snow Leopard. Everything was fine and dandy until I noticed that I only had 216 GB after the installation. My Macbook Pro is a 250 GB model. I know the OS and iLife applications take up space, but 34 GB? Really?
I'm thinking that my install wasn't so "clean" after all. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong and what I can do to recover some GB?

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
Don't forget that the stated capacity is more than you get in reality. For example. my Powerbook has a 160GB drive that shows the capacity as 148.93GB. What does OS X say the capacity of the hard drive is? When you take that into account, you may find that the operating system install is a more reasonable size.
One thing you can do to reduce the operating system footprint is to run Monolingual, to remove languages you'll never use. Download from http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/ . If you use it, take it slowly, and don't delete English!

Recovering Hard Drive Space?

Hi all,
I was wondering if there's a way to recover hard drive space after emptying the trash?
My macbook tells me that I have 1.39Gb of free space, so I went around deleting some videos, and then empty the trash.
However, I checked how much free space I have left, it's still 1.39Gb after emptying the trash, and I'm sure I've deleted around 10Gb worth of videos.
However, I notice that if I log out and then log back in, I get the space back.
I was wondering if I could recover the hard drive space without actually logging out.
Thanks in advance~

Operating with such a small amount of free space is quite dangerous and can result in directory corruption. I recommend you start be repairing your hard drive and permissions:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. 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 and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Normally you need at least 10 GBs or 15% of the hard drive's capacity as free space whichever is greater. Too little free space is hazardous to your hard drive's health and will cause OS X to run slower. If you are running out of space then you need a larger hard drive.

Mavericks recovered hard drive space post-install

I had about 12 gig free on my 15" 2012 MBP pre install. Installed 10.9 and now I have almost 36Gig free. Ran HD checks and no issues reporting. I looked at my backup and checked folder sizes in my profile pre and post install and all the data is there. I have an OCZ 256GB SSD drive installed and I've heard the stories about SSD and potential data loss but everything looks fine and is present post-install. I've read nothing about 10.9 compressing files so I am really stumped. I don't backup system files so I can't determine if some older files were purged. Still, thats a lot of data to recover. I then installed 10.9 on a new 27" Imac and hard drive space remained about the same and no extra space recovered. I'm a certified Mac tech and even all the techs I work with have never seen behavior like this on any version post-install. Anyone ever hear of this or have a similar experience? Thanks!!

Just installed Mavericks this morning and am surprised and alarmed in equal measure.
My MacBook Pro Late 11 750GB HG had:
156GB remaining before installing mavericks
It now it has
415GB remaining post installation.
All my apps and files appear to be there so I am at a loss to work out what has happened.

Need Help cleaning Hard Drive - What can I delete?

I am attempting to clean my hard drive and find space! I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper and see some large files I am wondering if I can delete. Can I delete without consequence the following:
Under Library - Cookies, Cache, Thunderbird
Under Desktop Items - previous local idisk with a .sparsebundles extension
I would appreciate any advice in this regard.

You need to free up lots of hard drive space.
At a minimum, at least, 15 to 20 GBs of space.
Perhaps even more.
Hard drive full or near full:
You are going to have to delete, move or archive your data to regain hard drive space.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. 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.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
You may have to Purchase an external FireWire or Thunderbolt hard drive to move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

How do you fix bad blocks on an external hard drive without using disk utility

so basically does anyone know how to fix bad blocks on a external hard drive without using disk utlility please

Oh...if you have data you are trying to save then its best to try cloning the drive to another one, which should save its data as-is to another drive. Hopefully you can do so without there being hangups around the bad blocks and keep at least most of your data intact. I'd recommend you try using Carbon Copy Cloner to do this, but you will need a secondary drive that is at least the size of the data on the problematic drive.

Working photographer needs help with hard drives and raid O decisions

Hi new here and also new to Mac well almost new been 20 years since i had a mac. i have a Mac Pro Book and this led to ordering the MacPro since I am a working photographer i made a complete switch in platforms so i have some questions and such but I did place a order on Friday for a 2.66 4gbs of Ram , 2 500 gb hard drive and a 30 in monitor and of course the ATI 1900 XT card so yes i am waiting like many for that card.
I put initial 4gb of ram since running CS2 will at least take a max of 3gb's in the memory cache . i plan on getting 2gbs more from OWC since that seems to be the only 3rd party ram at the moment that is working correctly from reading some of the threads here. Having 6gbs is a no brainer really given the amount of Raw processing that i do along with PS work plus having e-mail and other apps open at the same time. The ram to me is the easy part although expensive . My biggest issue is what to do with the 2 hard drive slots and Raid O or not but I will start a thread on that. But i will have 6gbs total for now and the bottom line is you can never have enough ram still holds true.
Now on to my diliemma with hard drives. I did have a raid O scsi 10k rapture and and 10 k scratch on my Dell box and I am just not sure what to do here. i ordered the 2 500 gb hard drive and I may just put them on the storage side of things than get 2 WD 150gb 10 k Sata drives. Now i could Raid O them for 300 gb and get a performace boast that way or i could keep them seperate and put everything on 1 150 drive and ue the second for scratch only. What i don't know is what Mac perfers and what works better. Not worried so much about failure of drives, thats just life in the big city stuff and you just have backups. What i more worried about is performance versus a waste . seems to me that Raid O may not even be needed with these new Intel boxes with all the horsepower going on. Now the other think I notice is the WD 150gb 10 k drives are 1.5 and not 3.0 so is it really faster than the 7200 3.0 single hard drives. I read barefeats shoot out and it seems just getting the right drives in 7200 and Raid O them maybe the answer.
Okay i am not the biggest geek on the planet but I do know my stuff but this is a area that i look for more knowledge on this. So if i can get some sound advice in this area. i know there are many photographers out there like me pushing hundreds of images that could use the same advice. Now let's leave the money end out , folks sometimes think more with there wallet than what works best not that I am opposed to saving money but after spending over 7 k already on this system it becomes a moot point. LOL
www.guymancusophoto.com

Ok your question is if you should RAID O the two 150GB Raptors or not.
I think it was wise for you to get a couple of them for a boot drive with "Time Machine" coming in the next version of Mac OS X. The second drive would make a excellent bootable backup and eliminating downtime if a boot drive dies on you one morning.
In fact any boot drive cloning software that is Mac Intel ready now would do you good.
Now Barefeats has run some tests, and I can pretty much back up what they say from my own experience.
Mac OS X and apps can be helped only so much by a faster boot drive, and a single 10,000 RPM Raptor is enough, RAID O a pair is overkill.
If you install everything on the boot Raptor and keep your space hogging files (except iTunes) in new folders on another drive, even a 7,200 RPM 500GB, the two drives combined is faster as there is nearly no wait. Both drives can be accessed at the same time. Keeping the boot drive slim keeps the stylus (arm) moving as little as possible to get all the small reads/writes Mac OS X needs.
I RAID O-ed my boot drives because 74GB was the largest they had at the time, so combining them gave me speed and larger storage. I hardly use the speed, it only comes in handy if by rare chance I duplicate a 20GB folder, then I can do it in half the time of a 7,200 RPM drive.
Some of the drawbacks of a RAID O set, especially as a boot drive is that I have to auto-clone the whole set to a external drive regularly (I actually do a couple). Since the data path is separated with a RAID O, any drive failure results in total data loss.
So if you RAID O those 150GB Raptors, your going to have to clone 300GB to a external drive (or another internal) regularly, like once a week. This will take considerable time and you can't use the machine while the cloning process is going on. Sure auto-cloning software like DeJaVu can be used at night/weekends, but why bother cloning more than you have to for no big speed increase?
However if your messing with huge Photoshop files that spill over your CS2 3GB RAM limit (you need to have a "scratch" thats as fast as RAM), duplicating large files and other heavy duty drive work, then a boot RAID O will come in handy. Just remember your initial performance of 185 MB p/s will drop about 20-25% when those drives are 3/4 filled. Still 140 MB p/s is extremely good and a no worry situation.
What is worrysome is anything below 80MB p/s (I'm talking uncached 4K write speeds under X-Bench) with a new boot drive and then as time elaspes that boot drive gets filled up and loses half or more of it's inital speed. 30 MB p/s is really slow. Beachball H&LL.
http://www.barefeats.com/hard33b.html
Do Erase W/Zero in Disk Utility all new drives before laying data on them. Drives get subjected to shock which causes bad sectors on the drive. Driver software uses your data as a guinea pig to test the sectors (which you might not be able to recover the file). Zeroing does this without your data, rewriting the bad sector map so your writes are much improved, OS is more stable. etc.

"revert" deleted hard drive name in disk utility HELP!!

I booted my wifes macbook pro 10.4.11 in target mode and connected it to my computer, macbook pro 10.5.6 and went into my disk utility to create a partition in the other computer. I used my disk utility from 10.5.6 because for some reason it got erased from the 10.4.11
so I started to do 2 partitions. It said there was not enough room so I clicked on "revert" and for some reason the name of the "macintosh hd" disappeared and I ejected the computer in target mode. Then when I tried to start it up, it just kept flashing a folder with a question mark. I booted again in target mode but still no "indented" "macintosh hd". it seems like it came unmounted maybe?
I have tried starting from x key, resetting pram, trying to load from install disc (which gets to the point where it asks where to install the OS and no HD shows up to choose) and even taking it to the apple store where they said the HD is damaged and/or corrupt. Before trying to reclaim the files, if I can, I wanted to see if anyone had this same issue and if it was solvable. I cant believe that I hit "revert" and it erased my hard drive name and it automatically made my HD corrupt or damaged?
PLEASE help anyone!
or if this is a lost cause, is there a good file recovery program where I can get my WIFES files back! Yeah, I am in trouble.
Thanks!

If anything can be recovered at all, you should quit using the computer asap. The more you use it the more OSX will write over those spots where the files were.
Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
(Has a Free Demo to see if it could or not, but you'll need another drive to recover to).
Or FileSalvage...
http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?%20mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
to recover what you can.
BUT, you'll need that other Mac with this one in FW Target Mode
BTW, don't use Leopards Disk Utility to do anything to a Tiger Hard Drive.

Need help removing hard drive from Time Machine exclusion list

I have a 1TB Western Digital Essential hard drive with about 500Gb of music, movies and other assorted data tethered directly to my iMac. I also have a 1TB Time Capsule that serves as my wireless router and connects to my iMac over the wireless network. I'm trying to use the Time Capsule as the ultimate backup device, to backup the data on my iMac and the tethered 1TB Western Digital hard drive via Time Machine. It already backs up all the data on my iMac, but unfortunately, Time Machine places the 1TB Western Digital hard drive in the exclusion list (which I understand is normal), but will not let me click the minus sign to remove the drive from the exclusion list (which is where I'm at a loss). Someone please help me find a way around this as I've been unable to find a way to remove the Western Digital drive from the exclusion list and have Time Capsule access its data. Many thanks in advance for any help with this.

gotham,
Forgive me, but are you highlighting the drive in the list before you click the "-" button?
Also, were is the external drive? Connected to your Mac or the TC. If the TC, then Time Machine won't backup the external drive. It needs to be connected to the Mac directly.
Otherwise, you can delete the TM .plist.
*Delete The Time Machine Preference .plist*
Go to --> Macintosh HD / Library / Preferences (Note: NOT Home / Library / Preferences).
Drag the .plist file labeled,
com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
to the root level of your Macs’ hard drive.
Reboot your computer.
This .plist file is automatically recreated at startup if it is missing.
You will need to reselect your Time Capsule in the TM Prefs for backup.
Now try 'removing' the other drive form the exclusion list.
Let us know if this helped resolve your issue.
Cheers!

NEED HELP ..HARD DRIVE PROBLEMS

My safari window doesnt pop up and ive been told it had to get my hard drive cleaned ..soo can yu instruct me in how to clean my hard drive so my safari & etc. would work the way there suppose too! plz & thnk yu!

Miki:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
ive been told it had to get my hard drive cleaned
What?
Try starting up in Safe Mode.
Then Repair Disk
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel, and report if it says anything but Verified)
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
If DU reports errors it cannot repair you will need to use a utility like Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior
Post back with update.
cornelius

Need help after hard drive crash

My hard drive crashed recently and I was unaware that the iPod would not synch music that I added to it from my personal CD's. Because I added a lot of music this way (and only about 80 songs from iTunes) I am hoping there is a way to move these songs to my new computer/iTunes.
I looked at support here on apple.com and I could only find instructions on how to move the songs if I had my old computer working. I need instructions on how to move songs directly from my iPod to my new computer with out having to access my old iTunes/hard drive.
I already authorized my new version of iTunes to accept the previously purchased music and it successfully synched them to my new computer.
In going through the steps that I was able to on the support site it said to consolidate music to the iTunes folder. I was afraid to do this b/c it seemed as though it would only do this with the music that is currently on iTunes (which is only the previously purchased music I mentioned above).
Please excuse the rambling post but I am in need of some assistance and figured that this was the best place to find it!
Thanks in advance. P.S. I have Windows Vista (it's not an option in the OS dropdown below yet).
George

Copying from iPod to Computer threads...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=868833&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=797432&#797432
Also these useful internet articles...
http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/
http://playlistmag.com/help/2005/01/2waystreet/
iPod: Frequently Asked Questions
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60920
Patrick

Need help: External Hard Drive doesn't show up

i havent use my external hard drive in 3 months. Before when i connect the usb, the hard drive shows up in the finder and i can transfer files and ext, but now it doesnt show up in the finder at all. I've check the disk utility and the EHDrive appears there, i've tried to click the verify and repair but it doesnt mount in the finder. I've also tried opening the HDrive in my player and it does open..
so please help me with regard to this ..

How is the drive connected to the computer? USB, Firewire......
Do you have another computer to see if the hard drive will mount there?
Restart the computer holding down the command - option/alt - P - R keys before the gray screen appears. Continue to hold until you hear the startup chime for the second time.
Reset NVRAM/PRAM
Disconnect the drive from the computer, shut it down for about 1 minute, connect it to the computer and turn it back on. While, doing that, restart the computer.
Try using another cable to connect the drive to the computer.

Can't modify external hard drive partition with Disk Utility

Hi,
I have an external 750GB hard drive that I previously formatted as FAT 32 because I wanted to be able to plug it into Windows computers as well. I was not very thoughtful at the beginning and I just created one big 750GB partition. I currently have 450GB used and about 300GB free.
I would like to create a new partition in the free space without losing the data I have in the disk, and format the new partition as Mac OS Extended to use it for Time Machine backups. Presumably Disk Utility can do it, but when I go to the "Partition" tab it says "This partition cannot be modified" and the "+" sign below it is grayed. Can anybody help me repartitioning my drive without losing my data?
Thanks!!!

That would likely be because the drive is partitioned MBR and not GUID. You cannot repartition an MBR partitioned drive on the fly. What you need is a drive that is partitioned using GUID (GPT) with on partition formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32. But to do that you must start the drive from scratch:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the entire partition in the rectangle by clicking on it (the lines will turn darker blue) and click on the [+] Add button. The volume will be divided in two. Select each volume and resize as your require.
5. Select one of the volumes you just created. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button.
6. Repeat Step 5 using MSDOS as the format type.
This will work with any PC that understands the GPT partition scheme which is Vista and Windows 7. Otherwise, you should just leave the drive as it is and forgo using Time Machine or purchase another drive for Time Machine.

Hard drive absent in disk utility - want to erase and reinstall MacOS

Hi there. Any help would be most gratefully received.
I have a Power Mac G5 Dual 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, one internal HDD (250GB serial ATA 7200rpm - the original one), two external HDDs and a Philips 170B display, running (or not) MacOS 10.39.
It was working fine yesterday but on startup this morning it hung for a while on the grey Apple logo and progress "clock" then froze on a blue screen.
I tried removing all cables except display and keyboard/mouse and restarted a few times but to no avail.
I tried entering safe mode but it wouldn't work. Upon subsequent attempts at startup it took me (instead of the blue screen) to the flashing question mark/finder folder screen.
I then booted from my install CD and tried to run Disk Utility to repair the disk. Disk Utility recognised the disk and allowed me to select it. But when I tried to verify it, it failed and told me to repair. When I tried to repair it told me "invalid b-tree node size".
I then tried running the Apple Hardware Test CD. It found no faults at all in the full test of the system.
All of my data is stored on my external HDDs so my next thought was to erase the internal HDD and reinstall my software. (I use the Mac solely for Video editing and the only applications I have installed - in addition to all the basics - are the Apple Production Suite.)
However, this time when I booted from the install CD, Disk Utility would not recognise the internal HDD. The only thing I had done since it had recognised it the last time was to run the Hardware tests. In addition, since running the hardware tests, the HDD started making a strange noise whenever the Mac was on - like clicking with almost beep-like access noises.
The last time I tried restarting and booting into Disk Utility, the clicking began again and then eventually stopped. But still no evidence of the drive in Disk Utility.
Soooooooooo. I don't need to save any data on the hard drive. I have all my software and OS discs. I just want to wipe the drive and start afresh (assuming this is the best course of action?). But I am unable to do so because of this new development in my attempts to fix the problem: the unrecognised hard drive (coupled with the strange noises).
If you have any ideas, please do get in touch. I'm pretty broke at the minute and I'm trying to find a solution without having to purchase a new drive. Obviously, if this is the only solution, then I'll have to bear that cost. But since it has recognised the disk just a few steps before, I'm hoping there's a way back.
Yours in optimism

I am not sure about battery, I still use G4 MDD which is unplugged for months, was always off at night (UPS was off) and still works.
But I would always use both SATA drive bays, and I think you need to invest in one or two new drives.
For now, try disconnecting your drive and see if you can boot from external drive and CD/DVD.
Also see if you can get into Open Firmware.
Resetting PMU would also be worth while when you get in to disconnect your hard drive (I think 3 yrs is more than enough for any OEM drive, too).
http://www.apple.com/support/powermac/

I deleted my internal hard drive, its the first hard drive in the disk utility

Now that I have deleted my hard drive I can't do nothing, help please ASAP

If you have anything you want to recover that isn't backed up, read these directions:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689
Otherwise, try booting with command R to see if it will restore the operating system that came with it.
If not, you'll need the original installer discs, or newer retail discs. Macs newer than March 29, 2010 but older than July 20, 2011 (or those that haven't had their model hardware updated since July 19, 2011) require AppleCare send you the original installer discs.
Apple provides a firmware update to support command-R booting for those Macs as well. But you have to have installed it before the erase happened.

Need Help Recovering Hard Drive Space on Disk Utility

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