Startup disk contains replica of itself inside invisible Volume folder

Hello. Bizarrely, my startup disk contains an image of itself, naturally diminishing the available disk space. It sits inside an invisible folder, namely: Volumes/[name of the starup disk]. This invisible folder "Volumes". Now, inside this folder are images (or folders) of all the volumes on the machine, and of each of them finder claims a size that maches the size of the date on it. But the folder "Volumes" itself is claimed to be the almost size of all the date on the startup disk except the Volumes folder itself. So Users, Applications, Library and System together are the same size as this invisible Volumes folder—almost. The Caches folders are missing inside the Volumes folder. And what finder counts as used space on that startup disk is just all the files including the size of that Volumes folder.
I don't think that's the way it should be, is it?

Hello H-C-R. no, I'm not. It may very well be that /Volumes folder. It doesn't display a / in the folder name, but maybe that's not what you mean. Anyway, it is like I said an invisible folder entitled "Volumes", and it contains what looks like all volumes connected, and their respective size count displays the size of the data each. All those folder's have icons like the volumes they refer to (no indication of them being aliases), except the startup volume. which is the volume that ominous invisible Volumes folder is sited on, too. That one is present twice. Once as a folder bearing the name of the volume, but not it's icon, and once as an alias bearing the name of the volume with [space]1 added to it, and the volume's icon. And the invisible Volumes folder on the startup disk has a size count, and that size count adds to the Used count of that startup disk. And since this is a long explanation for something visible at one sight, I'll give you a picture —
hope that it will be legible. Nice avatar icon btw. (yours).
Hello, Mr. Nanita, too. Does it contain only that alias?

Similar Messages

  • Computer wont recognize startup disk..

    My I mac just started getting wonky. On Re-start, it would not recognize start up disk. Re started using Install disk, went to disk utilities to run repair and the hard drive was not even listed in the menu. Looked ar re-installing sysrem, but no hard drive was available to install to. After a few more attempts, hard drive became available, ran disk repair, said everything was fine, repaired permisions, selected my startup disk and restarted.. Nothing. Blinking folder. Tried restart again, this time got spinning wheel on grey mac screen.. Computer seemes to be hot.
    Left it over night and it started up fine in the morning. Any help would be appreciated. Should I re-install system? Or has my drive gone bad?
    thanks

    Reinstalling the operating system does not look like the answer, more likely a hardware fault.  If you have important material on the hard drive, this would be an excellent time to get an external drive and backup the material.  Even better, use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, both free downloads, to make a bootable clone of the system on the external drive.  Then you could start from that drive if the internal drive is failing.
    Have you run the hardware diagnostic tests?  That might not be a bad idea...see if anything is identified as going bad.

  • PowerBook G3 PDQ Loses Startup Disk on Cold Boot

    I have a PowerBook G3 PDQ (266Mhz, 192MB RAM).
    For the longest time it's had Mac OS X 10.1 on it, along with Mac OS 9.2.2.
    I always noticed that it started up with Mac OS 9 after a cold boot, even if the startup disk was set for the OS X system folder.
    So, I reformatted the disk and re-installed OS X 10.1 (being the only version of OS X i own that will run on the machine). Everything ran fine.
    But after a cold boot, it lost the startup disk, and i get the flashing question mark on a floppy disk. I can hear the hard disk spin up, then down, then up, then down. Eventually the machine shuts off. I have to boot off a Mac OS 9 CD and select the OS X system folder to make it boot again.
    Anyone know how to fix this?
    Thanks.

    Like S.U. I replaced the PRAM battery on two Wallstreets (got batteries from OWC) and, although I'm very nervous about working with tiny parts, I found it to go well by following the iFixit instruction to the letter. The innards weren't nearly as fragile as I expected and I allowed plenty of time so I wouldn't feel compelled to rush.
    The most serious issue I encountered was that the original battery's cable on one WS managed to get snagged under the metal battery bracket when the computer was originally assembled. This compounded the problem that the user--a cigarette smoker--had inadvertently melted the plastic between the trackpad and the front edge of the upper case. This made the case weak at that point and I had to be very careful in dislodging the stuck cable.
    I had mentally made the job much more difficult than it turned out to be. Just have the right tools:
    1) You may find that, to remove the heat shied screw--requires a Philips #0 screwdriver--you may need to shorten the point of the driver to better fit the shallow cuts in the screw head. The screw is soft and can easily strip out if you indiscreetly use an unmodified #0 Philips.
    2) Have an old ice cube tray or egg carton handy to keep the screws sorted.

  • Windows 8.1 resets startup disk to itself after every update

    Hello,
    I'm on a late 2014 Macbook Pro 15" retina, running bootcamp with Yosemite on one partition and Windows 8.1 on the other. I prefer OSX as my default startup disk, but every time Windows updates it resets the default startup disk to Windows. Of course I can change it manually, but this gets tedious. Does anyone know a fix for this? Any help would be appreciated.
    Thanks,
    John

    You have screwed up your system and you're blaming the crashes on someone else.  You need to stop thinking it's someone else's problem.  Keeping your system healthy is your responsibility.
    There is NO upgrade path from preview/evaluation copies to the released versions, anyway, so it really doesn't matter.  You have to reinstall
    something.
    You could reinstall 8.0 and upgrade, or you could get an 8.1 disc and put that in as a fresh install (more expensive, but my recommendation), or you could see if maybe this can help you:
    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only
    -Noel
    Detailed how-to in my eBooks:  
    Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options
    Configure The Windows 8 "To Work" Options

  • Invisible Startup Disk Icon on Desktop and Finder

    Today suddenly I found that my Startup disk icon was gone from the desktop and from the Finder. I did some searching and found the following solution that may be useful for someone else:
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=4932292#post4932292
    I pasted the solution below:
    from a Terminal window, type:
    ls -lOd /
    (That's lowercase ell, lowercase ess, space, minus, lowercase ell, capital oh, lowercase dee, space, forward slash)
    You should get something like this:
    hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
    drwxrwxr-t 32 root admin - 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
    Sounds like you might see something like this instead:
    hostname:~ username$ ls -lOd /
    drwxrwxr-t@ 32 root admin hidden 1156 Feb 8 20:35 /
    (note it says "hidden" instead of "-")
    To fix this, type:
    sudo chflags nohidden /
    and provide your admin password. You won't get any output back from the command but the icon should now appear on your desktop, and the hidden flag should go away if you repeat the 'ls -lOd /' command.
    And just in case you missed it above, you've got to be sure Hard disks are turned on in Finder General Preferences under "Show these items on the Desktop"

    A few days after trying the solution in my previous post, I realized that the Startup disk icon was still missing from Devices in the Finder's sidebar.
    So, following some advice from other forums, I went and deleted com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist from homedirectory/library/preferences. Then did a control-option-click on Finder in the Dock and chose "relaunch".
    So this completed the fix. Coincidentally this also fixed a "freeze" issue that I was having.

  • "No enought room on startup disk for Application Memory" when using the Accelerate Framework

    Dear colleagues,
    I am running what I know is a large problem for a scientific application (tochnog) a finite element solver that runs from the Terminal. The application tries to solve 1,320,000 simultaneous linear equations. The problem starts when I use the Accelerate Framework as the Virtual Memory size jumps from 142 G to about 576 G after the library  (LAPACK) is called to solve the system.It does not do it if I use a solver that does not calls LAPACK inside Accelerate.
    The machine is a mac pro desktop with 8 GB of ram, the 2.66 GHz Quad-core Intel and the standard 640 GB hard drive. The system tells me that I have 487 GB available on hard drive.
    The top instruction in Terminal reads VM 129G vsize when starting. When I run the finite element application once the LAPACK library in the Accelerate framework gets called, the Virtual Memory (VM) jumps to 563 G vsize.
    After a short while, I get the "No enought room on startup disk for Application Memory error"
    This is a screen capture of the application attempting to solve the problem using the LAPACK library inside the Accelerate framework: Here are the numbers as reported by the activity Monitor.
    Tochnog Real Memory 6.68 GB
    System Memory  Free: 33.8 MB, Wired 378.8 MB, Active 5.06 GB, Inactive 2.53 GB, Used 7.96 GB.
    VM size 567.52 GB, Page ins 270.8 MB, Page outs 108.2 MB, Swap used 505 MB
    This is a screen copy of the same application solving the same problemwithout using the Accelerate framework.
    Tochnog Real Memory 1.96 GB,
    System Memory  Free: 4.52 MB, Wired 382.1 MB, Active 2.69 GB, Inactive 416.2 GB, Used 3.47 GB.
    VM size 148.60 GB, Page ins 288.8 MB, Page outs 108.2 MB, Swap used 2.5 MB
    I can not understand the disparity in the behavior for the same case. As I said before, the only difference is the use of Accelerate in the first case. Also, as you can see, I thought that 8 GB of ram memory was a lot.
    Your help will be greatly appreciated
    Best regards,
    F Lorenzo

    The OP had posted this question in the iMac Intel forum.
    I replied along similar lines, but suggested he repost this in the SL forum where I know there are usually several people who have a far better grasp of these issues than I.
    I would be interested in getting their take on this.
    Although, I think you are coming to the correct conclusion that there are not enough resources available for this process, I'm not certain that what you are saying on the way to that conclusion is correct. My understanding of VM is that it is the total theoretical demand on memory a process might make. It is not necessarily the actual or real world demand being made.
    As such, this process is not actually demanding 568GB (rounded.) As evidence of that, you can see there is still memory available, albeit quite small, in the form of free memory of 33.8MB and inactive of 2.53GB (the GB for that figure, above, seems like it might be a typo, since for the process when not using Accelerate the reported figure for inactive was 416.2 GB -- surely impossible) and 7.96GB used. The process, itself, is using 6.68GB real memory.
    In addition, I question whether the OP has misstated the 487GB free drive space. I think that might be the total drive capacity, not the free space.
    My guess is that it is the combination of low available memory and low free drive space prompting this error.
    From Dr. Smoke on VM:
    it is possible that swap files could grow to the point where all free space on your disk is consumed by them. This can happen if you are very low on both RAM and free disk space.
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/2232469?messageID=2232469&#2232469
    This gets more to the actual intent of your question...
    EDIT: Looks like some kind of glitch right now getting to the Dr. Smoke post.
    Message was edited by: WZZZ
    <Hyperlink Edited by Host>

  • What do i need to do when i get a startup disk full error?

    What do i need to do when i get a startup disk full error?  I can't update software or use my MacAir at all.

    Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
    iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
    Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
    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. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
    To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    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 see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    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 icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). 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. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • My mac air says " startup disk is full".How to solve ???

    My Mac air has a message during starting the computer and says that startup disk if full. In the composition of my hard there are 120 GB used space on other parts, which I have not understand where is these files.

    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 of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the available space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
    To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    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 see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    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 icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). 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. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • How do I clean my startup disk?

    I keep getting an error msg that my startup disk is full?  I've emptied the trash, still no luck?

    If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash:
    iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
    Then empty the Finder Trash again and reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
    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. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
    To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    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 see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    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 icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). 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. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • Startup disk

    I am getting an error message that my "startup disk is full.  Please delete files."   I am not that good with figuring this out, so I was hoping someone could help me out.  Any ideas?

    Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
    iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
    Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
    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. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
    To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    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 see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    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 icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). 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. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • How do i clean startup disk

    I continue to get a message that startup disk is full. I've cleaned all downloads and emptied trash.
    All help greatly appreciated.

    Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
    iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
    Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
    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. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
    If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
    To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
    Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
    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 see everything, you have to run it as root.
    Back up all data now.
    Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
    Triple-click the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
    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 icon grid.
    Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). 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. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
    The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
    When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • I have virtually no space left in my startup disk and it keeps declining in available free space?

    Ok fellow Mac people - why would my 500GB start up hard drive suddenly go from 489BG of space free to about 2BG free, and it declines in free space until I reboot the computer. Even after rebooting though it shows I barely have 3GB of space free. It has declined all the way down to 19MB free on my computer at one point! 
    My time machine backup goes back until Oct 26th and I did not have the problem at that time. The startup disk on that date is at it's normal capacity. Since the 26th of October I have upgraded to OS 10.7 and installed a trial of GoToMeeting - no changes other than that and my normal use. I have emptied the trash and got rid of a bunch of excess files I didn't need anymore as well, but that hasn't helped really.
    Any suggestions on what is happening? And, if I go back to the 10/26 startup disk image on the time machine will that affect any other partitions or drives on my computer? I don't want to lose any work that has been done and saved to other drives since then.
    Thanks
    Liz

    I am not familiar at all with that software; however, since your problems appear to have started after you installed it, I would very seriously consider uninstalling it using their uninstaller (if there is one) and/or do a thorough search of the entire hard disk for files containing that name. I'd also consider getting Omnisweeper to check my disk:
    http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/
    If you find that you have all your hard drive space back, then there is obviously something going on with that software.

  • How can I see what apps are running on a non-startup disk

    I recently changed over to a larger drive from my older startup drive. I want to erase that original drive and clean it up. When I go to Disk Utility and erase it says "erase failed, could not unmount disk". I try to eject it and it says "HD is in use".
    I figure I just need to see what's running on that drive and stop it somehow, or if there is another workaround?

    Twist170 wrote:
    I recently changed over to a larger drive from my older startup drive. I want to erase that original drive and clean it up. When I go to Disk Utility and erase it says "erase failed, could not unmount disk". I try to eject it and it says "HD is in use".
    I figure I just need to see what's running on that drive and stop it somehow, or if there is another workaround?
    If you're willing to use a command in Terminal, try this, where "old_disk" is the name of the old disk. (If the name of the old disk contains any spaces, prefix each space with a back-slash.) It will show you each file on the old disk that's open.
    sudo lsof | grep /Volumes/old_disk
    Spaces doubled for readability. The character just before "sof" is a lower-case letter "L". You'll be prompted for your administrative account's password.

  • Hard time for selecting Startup Disk (partition) in Mac Classic II.

    Dear coleagues, I'd like your help to understand and solve a tricky trouble. I'm sorry for the long text, but the issue is probably living in a small detail.
    The issue regards a Mac Classic II with internal and external HDDs. Internal HDD has two partitions, a smaller with System 7.1 (first) and a larger with System 7.5.3 (second). This one is installed there since 5 years ago, working fine.
    The (just installed) external HDD has 6 partitions (because of its size 9 Gb). It has been formated runing VCP in this Classic II itself and all partitions are initialized with HFS. It is intended to be a backup for my Classic II as well as my Mac Plus. I've started Installing System 7.5.3 in its third partition. Other partitions remain still empty.
    Using only internal HDD I can already perceive that "Startup Disk" control panel is unable to change the boot partition attribute between partitions in the same drive. When I open "Startup Disk" it usualy both partitions of internal HDD are highlighted. I can select a Zip Drive, for instance, and it will boot from Zip. But, when I switch it back to HDD, doesn't bother wich partition I select, it will always boot with the same partition (usually 7.5.3). Then, If i open Startup Disk CP again, both partitions are again highlighted.
    To switch between partitions in the same drive, I use Lido 7.5.6 PMount and there I select the boot partition. Then every time I select my HDD, that'll be the default boot partition.
    My conclusion is that in Mac Classic II the Startup Disk CP is unable to set a partition within a drive, it selects the drive only. The boot will obey the drive's partition table flag. That's why I can do it whith Lido, writing directly at HDD's flags.
    Now, attaching the external HDD, I can see all its partitions in Startup Disk CP and then I select one of them (the 3rd, with 7.5.3). Before rebooting, I close and open again the Startup Disk CP, then I can see all its 6 partitions highlighted. Just like I've been doing with the internal HDD, probably the solution to set a specific boot partition would be through Lido 7.5.6 PMount again. But Lido is unable to handle this drive. It appears gray in the drives list.
    What does it sound to you? What would you recommend to test? Is there an alternative for Startup Disk CP?
    Thank you.
    Regards, Ciro (Brazil)

    Dear Jan, good Evening.
    Thank you for your time.
    In fact I can select a specific partition, but by closing and reopenning Startup Disk CP I realize that the selection has been attributed to the physical drive (all partitions highlighted).
    I have tried Startup Disk CP in both System 7.1 and System 7.5.3. They do the same way.
    Internal HDD has been formated, partitioned and initialized with Apple HD CS Setup.
    This external HDD in a different way. Apple HD SC Setup hasn't been able to "see" it, probably because of its prior format system. Lido neither. That's why I went to VCP. Moreover, as it is too big for 68030, I had to format it attached to a Performa 6360. After formating, I've let VCP make set the partitions in HFS mode (partitions with 512, 1024 and 2032 Mb).
    I've mounted VCP in Mini VMac to get some screenshots for you:
    Bringing it back to Mac Classic II, it could be mounted with Lido, but System 7 has asked to initialize all partitions again. I've accepted, installed system 7 on it, and it didn't boot. Then I've repeated the partitioning and initializing procedures using Apple HD SC Setup (since now there's a Mac HDD with "small" logical drives). Nothing changed.
    I'm following your tip about System Picker. I've downloaded the sit file and read about it. It seems to be able to overlay the problem. I'm gonna try it and report back here.
    But I feel still uncomfortable not to be able to do things the regular way. As far as I know, the boot partition is an attribute of a drive partition in partition map, just like the "Active Partition" found in FAT systems. I should be able to write there as I can do with Lido in internal HDD.
    Thank you, Jan.
    Best regards,
    Ciro Bruno.

  • Time Machine and a Cloned StartUp Disk

    I have a BootCamp partition on my startup disk that is painfully too small. In the next couple of hours I will have a 2 TB drive delivered to replace it. Splitting it in half between Mountain Lion and BootCamp/Windows, I have addressed any issues I thought would arise. I plan to clone the Mac partition of my current drive onto the new and just do a clean install of the BootCamp/Windows partition. Backups done, preparations taken care of, my final concern has come to mind...
    Will Time Machine continue its incremental updating from a cloned drive?
    In the past, any time I've changed computers the backup wasn't available. Other forums I've checked says that Time Machine allies itself with the MAC address of the computer it backs up. Some hinted that there's a paring with the drive it backs up as well. Is this true? I'm not changing Macs, I'm not even changing the data; I'm just changing the drive its on.
    It's not a big deal if I lose the backup though I'd prefer not having to go through that initialization again. It just seems logical that Time Machine would view the clone same as the original. Any feedback?

    I personally only have the Time Machine backup. The main advantage of the Time Machine backup is that it happens automatically every hour that the Mac is active, incrementally backing up files that changed. With a clone, it is only as up to date as the last time you performed a cloning run. The second advantage of Time Machine is that you can +go back in time+ to an earlier state, not just restore to the latest state. With a clone, all you have is the last backup.
    The advantage of a clone is that you can boot from it. So if your hard drive fails, you can still use your iMac to wrap up necessary work before sending your iMac in for repair.
    It you have two external hard drives, there would be nothing wrong with doing both. Make a clone about once a month and let Time Machine handle the up-to-the-last-hour backups.
    If you had to choose one, I would use Time Machine.
    It is remotely possible that your primary storage drive and your Time Machine drive will fail at the same time. So I do keep my most critical files (just the files) backed up to second separate storage location. I do that manually.

Maybe you are looking for