Start up disc full. How to unload?

I cannot copy pics to desktop. warning says that disc is full. How do I unload the disk to make more room?

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB free for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data.
Use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space.
Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.
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 really see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now if you haven't already done so. No matter what happens, you should be able to restore your system to the state it was in at the time of that backup.
Launch the 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 page that opens.
After installing ODS in the Applications folder, drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Similar Messages

Start up disc full - how do i free up space?

Hi, have put itunes onto external hard drive and iphotos I bought the iphoto library manager from fatcat (?) but start up disc still saying full, any other suggestions

Remember that after you copy the items such as your iTunes music library and your iPhoto library to an external hard drive, in order to free up the space they are taking on your internal hard drive you must put the original items in the Trash and empty the Trash.
Be sure you test the copies before you delete the old ones. That way if the new libraries don't work for some reason you have a way to recover.
Best of luck.

RE: Start-up disc full!

I am receiving msg. "start up disc full" and am unable to do updates, download i-tune purchases, etc.... I went into finder and did the command i on "library". Looks like this is my problem. Any suggestions on how to clean it out? Thx!

If you are talking about the Library folder (or the System Library folder) at the root level of your hard drive, DO NOT delete anything in it.
Your best bet is to move some of your content files to an external drive. Items like your iTunes and iPhoto libraries are likely to be largest. Here is how to do it:
Copy the library in question (the iTunes library is located in your Music folder, iPhoto can be found in your Pictures folder) to an external hard drive.
Launch the application while holding down the option key on your keyboard.
In the resulting dialog, select the library on your external drive.
Test to make sure the copied files are functioning normally. If they are,
Move the old library to the Trash and empty the Trash to reclaim that disk space.
Best of luck.

Start up disc full, tried everything I can find, no changes, help?

I posted this somewhere earlier, sorry for repeating, but I can't find it. AFter getting the start up disc full message, I backed up everything on an external hard drive with Time Machine, and additionally, copied everything from iphoto on to the same drive, different partition. I have freed up tons of memory, but no change to the start up disc when I check it in the activity monitor area. I have restarted it a number of times, emptied all trash, and checked the console log for messages. I see lots of "failed to count the number of files in the "/system/library/memory/startupItems": No such directory. Other than that, nothing popped out at me. I also ran the diagnostics for the disc and repaired all permission scripts, (I think that's what it said) no help.
I am grateful for any help, could it be a virus or an error I can't detect?
Thanks,
Veronica

Would that have worked if I had tried it before the "archive and install"? Because that is what I tried next and it didn't work, and I'm just wondering if it didn't work BECAUSE I tried to do the Archive and Install first? Or if it just never would've worked because my hard drive's messed up?
I'm just wondering because after I got the last response, I called Apple Care to see if there was ANYthing else I could do before having to either erase everything or actually haul it down to the Apple store, and it's the Apple care guy who told me to try the Archive and Restore first. So I'm just a bit annoyed if this could've been avoided by simply doing a new install first, if it's the Archive and Install that ruined everything...

I have a MacBook 6,1 and have a number of start up discs. How can I find out which one came with my model?

I have a MacBook 6,1 and have a number of start up discs. How can I find out which one came with my model?

They sometimes have that information on the label. Otherwise, it's trial and error. The model you have is a Late 2009 13" MacBook. It came with a special version of 10.6.1 pre-installed.

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

Hi there, I have lost imovie on my iMac after taking it to the shop to get the hard drive replaced. Unfortunately I do not have any of the start up discs. How do I get imovie back on my computer?

Hi there, I have lost imovie on my iMac after taking it to the shop to get the hard drive replaced. Unfortunately I do not have any of the start up discs. How do I get imovie back on my computer?

See this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20635110#20635110

Won't Start/ Start-up disk full/ How to open CD Tray manually

UGH. I was duplicating a catalog in Adobe Lightroom, and wasn't in the room. It tried to tell me that the start-up disc was full, but I didn't respond, and it came on several more times, finally crashing the computer. Now it won't start up. I get the chime, the grey screen with apple, then black screen with the following....
/etc/master.passswd: Invalid argument
Missing Self ID for node 2!
node 3!
node 1!
I THINK I need to get in and clear out some of the start-up disc. I tried to start it as a target, but it did nothing. If I could get the CD Tray out, maybe I could use my Disk Warrior, but I don't know how to do it manually- is there a Paperclip trick on the metallic G5s that have the sliding-down door?
HELP!

You can eject the tray by holding the mouse button down while it boots. Try a USB mouse & keyboard if you have one, but a bluetooth one should work.
If the mac is booting correctly you should get a dialog asking you to pair the mouse & keyboard if the OS cannot detect one that is paired. I think some startup key combinations work via bluetooth.
A known working USB keyboard is really the answer if you need to trouble shoot startup issues I'm afraid.

My photos won't upload to iphoto says start up disc full

I have been trying to upload photos from new Iphone we took on vacation but will not upload all photos because it says the start up disc is full, any suggestions as to what that means or how to fix?

Jason Worman wrote:
I openned up the utility we are down to about 3.8 GB of free space, any suggestions as to what to delete? I did not realize we had used up over 600 GB of space, I did not think a hard drive could fill up, we are starting with deleting movies and apps, anything else we might not be aware of? I really appreciate your help
You need a minimum of 60 to 100G free for correct operation of your internal drive, deletions are unlikely to get you all the way there and then the drive will fill up again.
Buy a large external drive (twice the size of your internal) and move a LOT of files to it.
Everything fills up, even the extraordinarily expensive handbags my girlfriend buys, at their prices I expected them to contain life, the universe and everything .... but they don't

Start Up Disc Full - Different from full hard drive?

Hi,
I have a mac book pro...one of the older models...around 5 or 6 years old..the silver one with the silver around the screen part. Running Mac OS X 10.6.8,
2.33 GHz, 2GB ram.
Lately my computer has been rediculously slow with everything, but aside from that my issue is with my start up disc. I would have over 1.5 GB of space left, open up a photoshop file...make some alterations and save...and all of a sudden I have NO SPACE left. These alterations created the photoshop file to be like 50mb more. Its a 200mb file. So how can I go from 1.5 gigs to saving a 200mb .psd file and all of a sudden 0 hd space?
Sometimes I couldnt even save the .psd because when I opened it all of a sudden I have half a gig now. And even if I had half a gig why wouldnt I be able to save? I go to save and sometimes it says "your start up disc us full" - Is this different than my harddrive?
What am I missing here? Is photoshop using some sort of weird caching thing?

Hi...
I would have over 1.5 GB of space left,
Definitely not enough free disk space. You are lucky your Mac even boots.
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop.
Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure there's a minimum of 15% free disk space.
OSX Tips Where did my Disk Space go?
Freeing Up Hard Disk Space - Mac GuidesFreeing Up Hard Disk Space - Mac Guides
Anytime you edit a file in Photoshop, that decreases disk space.

CS4. Photoshop. Start Up Disc full?

I am in Photoshop and a message came up saying my start up disc is almost full. Where is the start up disc? Thank you.

That message is from the OS, and the startup disk is the one that has the OS installed on it.
MacOS gets very, very flakey if the startup/OS/boot disk is full.

I may need more room on start up disc. How do I do that?

While watching a long video forwarded to me I got a message that I have little space left on my "start up" disc. What is that? How do I make more space on it?

If you're talking about formatting your hard drive it will erase everything on the partition your format. Try installing Lion first, or removing some software, photos, applications, etc.

HELP! START UP DISC FULL...What do I do?

My computer says start up disc is full. I have 59GB of photos in my iphoto library. I have copied them all to external hard drive, but nervous to delete it. What is the best 2nd option to save them to? I can't do updates or much at all right now. I can't even upload photos from my library to snapfish or shutterfly to make photo book. Do I invest in $50 a month for cloud service? Buy a second hard drive? Move them all to discs? I just can't believe 21,000 pics have completely filled my memory.
Thanks!
Juli

You might look through this for ideas on freeing up some space....
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

Start-Up Disc Full Notification

I still have 56 GB of space in my start up disc but my computer is saying that I don't have enough memory to eun other applications. I've done the disk utility repair, used CCleaner, removed unecessary files, and practically went through the whole process. Not sure if my computer has somekind of virus or I'm just missing something. Appreciate any help I can get.

Your problem is not lack of disk space, but excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.
That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination. In Activity Monitor, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more memory over time without ever releasing it.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details:
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines: About the Virtual Memory System

Start up disc full-warning!

Hello
Just received a warning saying my start up disc was nearly full, i remember there was a simple little widget or programme that tells you what uses up most of your hard drive space (is that the same thing as your start up disc?) any way, does anyone know a good programme that tells you what applications use most space? so I can see where all my memory is going, then I can take some action. (i back up often and store a lot of photos etc on an external hard drive)
Thanks as always
x

HI!
the program you are looking for is the activity monitor that is found in the utilities folder under applications. buttttt thats not the same thing as your start-up disk being full . that little warning means you have just about filled up your hard drive. That means it is either time for an upgraded hard drive or for you to do some cleaning off of it.
so you should either delete movies, music, programs that you don't use anymore or look in the store for a reasonably priced new hard drive
Billy

Can't turn computer start up disc full

My computer gave me a message that my start up disc was full but then my computer battery died and by the time I got it charged it had turned off and now will only make the initial turn on and then shows a black screen. Why should I do ? I don't want to lose my information on my computer! Thank you!

10.6.8 or 10.7 or later?
For 10.6.8, boot from your Installer/Utilities DVD, but do not install. Wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn and invoke Disk Utility, select your Hard drive and ( Repair Disk ).
For 10.7 or later, hold Command R at Startup, choose Disk Utility, slect your Hard drive and (Repair Disk).

Start up disc full. How to unload?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for