12" HDD half gone with OS install

B

blokie

Guest
okay i just bought the girlfriend a 12" ibook for school and pulled it out of the box, installed office x and browsing around as I'm a newbie to mac myself I noticed that there's only 23.7gb of HDD left out of 40. And honestly those are they only two things she has on her computer cuz I just recieved it yesterday and I'm not trying to sugar coat this but I'm seriously disappointed if that's the case. I'm shocked that an OS is THAT BIG. Not that I acutally think its that big but how can one check to see if its the proper size HDD?

oh and secondly, her sisters' ex was telling her to install firefox. What is the hype behind this firefox browser? Everyone I ask who used it for PC and this dude for the mac, couldn't give me an answer other than "its the best browser out there" yet no concrete answer as to why one should switch. So I thought I'd ask the mac pro's (you guys).

Thanks.
 
OP
R

radarbob

Guest
The OS is not "THAT" big. The mac I'm typing on is using under 9GB for OS X, MS Office, and some other miscellaneous programs, and of course the files we've created.

First a 40GB drive does not have 40GB of usable space. My 20GB drive for example has 18.63GB of usable space. I'll guess your drive has 37GB usable.

Click the apple menu, click "about this Mac", from that pop up click "more info...". This will launch System Profiler. When that comes up click on "ATA" and you will see more info about your drive than you'll understand.

I suggest a clean reinstall. During install keep an eye out for a button for customizing the install. You will be able to uncheck all the languages that you don't use and save hundreds of megabytes in space. If you installed the developer's tools, don't reinstall it. You don't need that unless you write programs for the Mac.

MS Office also has several options during install that I imagine makes a few megabytes difference.

Firefox is a good browser. It has more security features and is not the focus of viruses like Internet Explorer is. Firefox also has tabs (so does Safari but not Internet Explorer) which I love. I use both Safari and Firefox on my Mac and Firefox on the PC as much as possible.
 
OP
B

blokie

Guest
Thanks radarbob for the reply, she was able to find that. Is anyone able to give me a quick and dirty explanation of how to do a clean install on a mac in lamens terms so that I can relay this to my gf whose across the world! She just checked her system profiler and obviously like radarbob said, it has a capacity of 37GB and it only has 23GB available with only the OS and office on it. Does she just use those recovery cd's that came with her system and holds the control C button?

thanks.
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2004
Messages
3,378
Reaction score
61
Points
48
blokie said:
Does she just use those recovery cd's that came with her system and holds the control C button?

Yes, there are menus that lead you through the entire process it isn't hard.

I would suggest trying to just get rid of applications that she won't use,like Xcode, and some of the demos that came on the system, like Microsoft Office and iWork before doing a clean install.
 
OP
B

blokie

Guest
would anyone be willing to put some time in to suggest a list of what programs she could get rid of that I could pass on to her. I bought her this cuz she's not into any sort of editing (movie or music), just browsing the net and SCHOOL related; Word documents, powerpoint that type of stuff and she only needs music and pictures on there apparently. And this, as a reminder only, is a brand new ibook right out of the box with only Office X installed AND THAT'S IT.

Sorry 'bout the request but I'm not one for opting for reinstalls of OS (although being a previous PC user I was).

thanks.
 
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
320
Reaction score
8
Points
18
Location
North Carolina
Your Mac's Specs
White 2ghz Core Duo Macbook, 2ghz RAM, 60gb Hard drive, SuperDrive
reinstall the OS, without useless games like Marble Blaster Gold and Nano Blaster... along with Pages/Keynote if you won't use them.
 
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
749
Reaction score
6
Points
18
Your Mac's Specs
Powerbook G4/ 15.2"/ 1.67 ghz/ 2 gb RAM/ ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (128 mb RAM)/ 100 gb hdd@ 5400 RPM
Ok, if she stirctly uses it for school and photos/ music, then when she reinstalls she should only put on iPhoto and iTunes. Forget GarageBand (which is 2 gigs by the way), iMovie, and iDVD if she won't use them.

Also, if she has Office, have her delete the Office and iWork 30 day trials, as well as TextEdit. And if she's using AIM, have her delete MSN Messenger and iChat.
 
OP
R

radarbob

Guest
Beyond what's already mentioned there are a bunch of utilites, under the folder of the same name. But they are pretty inconsequential file size wise. Besides two years from now you may need one of those.

Do a find for "type is application" and see what you have. Happy deleting!

Just be sure to not empty your trash can for a while to make sure you didn't delete something you shouldn't have.

Also, as time goes by, you'll be downloading files from the internet. Through preferences you can tell your browser what folder to download to. Make all your browsers download to the same folder, then cleaning that out out periodically will be easier.

How I keep downloaded files from taking up too much space.
You really should keep backups of the files/apps downloaded from the internet and installed on your computer. After a while there are new OSes, new versions of things and the version you have likely is no longer available for download - two years from now when, for whatever reason, you want to reinstall it.

I created a disk image (see below) the same size as a CD. I have all my browsers putting downloaded files there. When the disk image gets full the OS will give a message to that effect. That's when I burn a CD then delete the files in the disk image.

I also make a point of going through that download folder/disk image occassionally to throw away things I know I don't want to keep.

Creating a disk image
Launch Disk Utility.

From the "images" menu, click new/Blank image...

From the dialog box, Pick where you want it to be, choose the image size from the dropdown list, click "create"

Note that the disk image is called <whatYouNamedIt>.dmg; and that this image is mounted on the desktop (regardless of where you created the disk image). So it looks as if two files were created, and the "mounted" image behaves exactly like a disk or CD on your desktop. If you "eject" the mounted image, the *.dmg file still exists where you created it.

Double-clicking the .dmg file mounts it onto the desktop.


How the disk image works for downloaded files
Fabulously, actually...

Through your browser's preferences, set the download location/folder to be your .dmg file. Now all downloaded files are stored here - even if the .dmg is not mounted on the desktop. Thus downloading always works just like it does for a regular folder.

Once the disk image becomes full, put in a blank writeable cd, drag the .dmg file to it and burn, baby, burn.
 
OP
B

blokie

Guest
thanks for all the suggestions ppl, really appreciate it. I will pass them onto her and see how she/we make out with it.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top