Finder failed to open when starting macbook pro due to low disk space (possibly)

I have a Macbook Pro (13") running snow leopard and have a partitioned hard drive (half OS X and half Windows 7). This morning I was using the Mac side and was running low on disk space (very low) so I was moving desktop files into folders to free up some space. I restarted the computer to see what the free space was but the computer stopped/froze at the desktop image (no folders or dock appeared. I restarted the computer many times but the finder never opens and all I see is the desktop wallpaper. I donnected usb drives and put in dvds but the finder never appears so I cn do nothing but shut down and start up.


I ran Disk Utility but it found no problems with the disk. I do not have a backup of the important file forlders on my drive and due to low disk space I am worried to reinstall and archive the OS since there may not be enough disk space to archive (only about 220 mb free on the apple side when I am in windows using bootcamp).


Does anyone know what happeded to my machine? Is there such low disk space that finder had an issue? I have started on such low memory before.


What does Archive actually do when reinstalling OS X? Does it make a copy of the HD files and folders or does it simply reinstall the operating system piece by piece while protecting the files and folders that I wish to save?


Thanks for all your help and sorry for the length of the writing (I wanted you to understand all before replying).

a

AlO said:

I have a Macbook Pro (13") running snow leopard and have a partitioned hard drive (half OS X and half Windows 7). This morning I was using the Mac side and was running low on disk space (very low) so I was moving desktop files into folders to free up some space. That doesn't free up space. Are you sure you were not copying files, thus consuming disk space? Where were the files and the folders you were "moving" them to? restarted the computer to see what the free space was but the computer stopped/froze at the desktop image (no folders or dock appeared.

Does anyone know what happeded to my machine? Is there such low disk space that finder had an issue? I have started on such low memory before.

Click to expand...

Disk space and memory are not the same thing.

Thsnks for the reply.

I guess I should have explained better. First I deleted some large image files, though not too many. Then I got side tracked and noticed that my desktop had so many files and I also noticed that the computer was running slow so I was grouping them into folders to speed up the system (I have done this multiple times and it does speed things up if you reduce the ungrouped number of files on your desktop). Then I restarted in order to again begin deleting unwanted files and this is when the system did not restart properly (no finder/folders/dock...etc appeared).

Snow Leopard, eh? Ok then, your Library folder is not hidden.

Go to Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences and find com.apple.finder.plist
Drag that file to the Desktop if you can. If not, delete it.
Restart the computer. That will create a "fresh" Finder plist file.
Better?

Follow up question

toMACsh said:

Snow Leopard, eh? Ok then, your Library folder is not hidden.

Go to Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences and find com.apple.finder.plist
Drag that file to the Desktop if you can. If not, delete it.
Restart the computer. That will create a "fresh" Finder plist file.
Better?

Click to expand...

I'm having the same issue, though don't have a partitioned drive. I can't trash the .plist file because I can't see anything on my screen except a background pic and my mouse. Any help would be appreciated!

MVmom said:

I'm having the same issue, though don't have a partitioned drive. I can't trash the .plist file because I can't see anything on my screen except a background pic and my mouse. Any help would be appreciated!

Click to expand...

Restart and hold down the Shift key to boot into "Safe Mode". Can you find things when you do that?

Thanks, yes that worked! I found that answer on another forum last night after posting my question. I also reset pram before booting in safe mode... but thank you for your quick reply!