02-22-2009, 09:54 PM

My new MacBook Pro is supposed to have a 250 GB HD. When I use Finder to check the capacity of my HD, it shows that my HD has ONLY 141 GB of capacity. It also shows that I have used 81 GB and have ONLY 60 GB available. To get this info, I right click on the HD icon and click the "Get Info" option.

Why does my HD not show 250 GB capacity and more available space?

I am now worried about disk space and am wondering why I am missing over 100 GB of capacity.

Please help me understand...

Thank you.

02-22-2009, 10:27 PM

Is this the newest MBP? Have you by any chance installed Boot Camp and Windows?

02-23-2009, 12:40 AM

Yes this is the newest MBP. I have not installed Boot Camp and have not partitioned in any way (that I am aware of).

02-23-2009, 12:52 AM

The smallest drive is a 250GB. What does it show if you click on the Apple in the upper left hand corner and on About This Mac, and then on More Info. Click on Serial-ATA and see what it shows.

A 250GB drive should show at least 232GB or around.

02-23-2009, 11:19 AM

i have a 160GB HD and once formatted and OSX installed it has 141 GB or so. Maybe they put the wrong hard drive in? Like dtravis 7 said, just the about this mac section...

02-23-2009, 12:25 PM

Thanks dtravis7.

The more info section confirms that I have a 250 GB (232) HD. I copy the contents of this info below. Note that the "Macintosh HD": section shows the capacity as 141 GB and available as 56 GB.

Can anyone help me understand how to free up the full HD capacity?


About this Mac/More Info/Hardware/Serial-ATA:

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:
Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

Hitachi HTS543225L9SA02:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS543225L9SA02
Revision: FBEAC50F
Serial Number: [xxx]
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 141.21 GB
Available: 56.72 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2

02-23-2009, 01:17 PM

Wow, that could be bad. You could have a hard drive with tons of bad sectors.

If they had mistakenly given you a 160 GB drive, it wouldn't have showed a capacity of 232.89 GB, and it wouldn't even show as 141.21 GB either. 141.21 GB converted into how the drive makers market their drives works out to a bit over 151 GB. A 160 GB hard drive would have 149 GB of usable space.

I'd suggest backing up all your data and bringing this in to an Apple store. Most likely they'll have to replace your hard drive.

02-23-2009, 03:59 PM

Or, he could have a 250 GB hard drive with unpartitioned space. (free space)
It's unlikely it could have gotten past quality control that way, but who knows?

(BTW, that many bad sectors on any hard drive would cause total failure.)

To the OP:

Boot the machine with your original install media (Leopard DVD 1). After it boots, escape from the install program and select Utilities - Disk Utility from the top menu.

Post the information that Disk Utility shows concerning your hard drive.

Regards.

02-23-2009, 05:52 PM

Thank you all and to chscag for the last post. I have now resolved the problem.

You were correct (chscag). When I booted with the install dvd and opened the Disk Utility, under the partitions tab it showed that my HD volume was using only part of the total disk space (there was unpartitioned free space). I simply dragged the corner of the graphic to the full size of the disc, clicked apply and it re-sized the volume to the same size as the disk. My HD now shows the full capacity of the drive in Finder.

This was likely done by the vendor (Future Shop) when I purchased and asked them to set up my machine. In any case - it is now resolved.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS - AND FOR THE SOLUTION!

02-23-2009, 10:22 PM

That is crazy that they partitioned it like that. Glad you got it sorted out though and have all your HDD Space available to you!