Please HELP/Scratch Disc

Please could someone please help? In the programme Disk Utilities I clicked on Mackintosh HD, and on the top Menu Bar was, First Aid. Erase. RAID. & Restore
I clicked onto Erase, then Erase Free Space, then 7 pass Erase of Deleted Files, to free up space taken up by deleted files.
After this had completed running I thought everything was OK, however when I tired to open my Photoshop application the message came up, Scratch Disc Full along with a panel Which was: Scratch Disks. First Second , Third etc.

I checked the get info on my Hard Drive and in the Available Space it was Zero K available, normally this is about 5.60GB, however there was nothing, and I'm unable to open most applications because the Available space is no longer there.

Could someone please advise and tell me what I have done wrong, or where all the Available Memory has gone?

Kindest regards Bill Marshall

Hi William. Well first, deleted files do not "take up space". You were not freeing space by doing the "7 pass delete". What you were doing was normally called "wiping" - you were overwriting the deleted space with differing patterns to be sure no cyber snooper could recover the data you thought you had safely deleted.

So, there was no need to have done this to recover any space. It would not do that. That much I can say, and I mention it for your future reference. As to what happened afterwards, I am at a loss.

I would advise that you get one of the excellent disk space usage utilities and run it to see if you can detect where your free space has disappeared to. Of course you may need to delete something just to make enough room for the newcomer!

Try Disk Inventory X

http://www.derlien.com/index.html

or

WhatSize

http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize

to see where all the space is.

Good luck!

William said:

. . . however when I tired to open my Photoshop application the message came up, Scratch Disc Full. . . .

Click to expand...

Sounds as though something like this happened.

Thank you everyone, Problem now solved.

Kindest Regards.

Billl Marshall