Running out of memory? Random shut downs!

Question

My computer will frequently just shut down. There is not much memory left so I'm wondering if this is the reasoning or what? It will not turn back on when this happens, unless I plug in the charger.
Also, I purchased an external hard drive for backing up purposes. The guy from the Apple store taught me to just to copy my user folder when I back up. How can I continue to back up my date, but delete items form my hard drive without losing them?

Answer 1

Welcome To  Discussions Hi treamy!
"There is 5.33 GB left on the Hard Disk Drive."
Whoa! You may be flirting with danger!
Insufficient available space, can cause performance issues, system corruption, and possible loss of data.
Depending on Mac system usage habits, it is a general recommendation, to keep 10% to as much as 20%, of the Total capacity, available at all times.
Review the suggestions, in the documents that I have linked to below.
Authored by Dr Smoke:
Problems From Insufficient RAM And Free Hard Disk Space
Freeing Space On Your Mac OS X Startup Disk
Have you ever run any routine Maintenance procedures, as suggested in the articles linked to below?
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance, authored by Kappy
Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System Maintenance, authored by Gulliver
Maintaining Mac OS X, authored by Dr Smoke
Is the iBook shutdown overnight, or does it run 24/7?
If you turn the Mac off nightly, the Background Maintenance Tasks, are not run in a timely manner.
These can also be run, using a Third-Party utility, or manually using Terminal, to run the CRON Commands.
I use MacJanitor, when necessary.
INSTRUCTIONS TO RUN CRON MANUAL COMMANDS
Quit all applications/programs.
Navigate to HD > Applications > Utilities.
Double click on Terminal, to open.
At the prompt, type:
sudo periodic daily
Press Return.
Enter your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
This will execute the daily script that is sheduled to run every night.
When completed, repeat this procedure, but change the command to:
sudo periodic weekly
This one rebuilds a database or two, and usually takes somewhat longer to complete. It is scheduled to run once a week.
Repeat again, with command:
sudo periodic monthly
Or they can all be run in one pass, which is preferable, with this command:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
When the tasks complete, and return to the prompt, you may quit Terminal.
Restart the Mac, and run Repair Permissions.
TO REPAIR PERMISSIONS ON THE STARTUP DISK
1.Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities, and select the startup disk in the left column.
2.Click First Aid.
3.Click Verify Disk Permissions to test permissions or Repair Disk Permissions to test and repair permissions. (I never "Verify". Just run "Repair".)
Rerun RP, until the only messages reported, are listed here
Spurious Permissions Errors Using: 10.2.x, authored by Michael Conniff.
Spurious Permissions Errors Using: 10.3.x, authored by Michael Conniff.
Spurious Permissions Errors Using: 10.4.x, authored by Michael Conniff.
When "Repair Permissions" is complete. Quit "Disk Utility".
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