Problem with iMAC

Hi
My 8 month old iMac is telling me I do not have enough space on my hard drive to download updates. I have 98.1 MB of available space. This happened once before when the PC was weeks old and the expert at Apple fixed it over the phone. He explained it as a
"computer glitch" I cannot of course remember how he sorted the problem, but it has happened again. Can anyone help ???

You have 98.1 Megabytes or Gigabytes? That makes a large difference.

problem with iMAC

Hi Dennis

it is 98.1MB

Hard to believe your computer will even function with 98mb free...but that is your problem if correct...either dump or move gigabytes of data to an external for proper function.

Your 8 month old iMac came with the minimal 1TB HDD or the upgraded 2TB if you upgraded it..what exactly do you have on your iMac that's taking up that much space?

You might want to ensure that your Trash bin is emptied and then go hunting to clean up a WHOLE load of space.

I have the 1TB drive and over nearly 2 years have managed to fill up about 350GB of it..

post

I find this very confusing, Sesame.
Go to Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor
Click on Disk Usage tab, make sure Macintosh HD is showing and it will list Space Utilised and Space Free and an icon showing the size of the HDD - as per my screenshot - what does yours say?

problem with iMAC

Hi Gandolf, Thank you for your reply, Disk Usage says -
Space utilised 498.9GB Space Free 351 MB
Now it tells me I do not have space even to save a document I was using.
As I said this happened before and it took the Apple expert a long time to get it fixed.

Did you buy it new? Do you have the drive partitioned into multiple partitions? My iMac is over a year old and mine came with the 1TB drive.

Is this iMac 8 months old, or just 8 months old to you?

I bought the iMAC in Costco at end November, 2011
It is just standard and has not been upgraded. The Dock is not divided.
AS I said before, the last time this happened the Apple expert told me it was a
"computer glitch", which does not help me put it right.

Regardless of what is stored on your hard drive (and assuming that you have properly emptied your trash can)...if you only have 98 meg free...you need to free up some space by:

- trashing unnecessary items (remembering to empty the trash)
- back up items to an external hard drive or USB stick (then delete them from the HD)
- "burn" items to a backup CD or DVD (then delete them from the HD)

You cannot run your Mac with so little free space.

- Nick

Hi MacGandalf this is what disk usage reads
Disk Usage
- Space utilized 499GB
Space free 250.1MB

Sesame said:

Hi MacGandalf this is what disk usage reads
Disk Usage
- Space utilized 499GB
Space free 250.1MB

Click to expand...

Still doesn't matter. 250meg free is not enough. You NEED to remove some items from your HD to free up more space. Currently (according to the numbers you posted)...your HD is 95% full.

- Nick

FYI (for anyone reading)...the "mid-2011" low-end 21" iMac came with a 500gig HD.

- Nick

Hi Pigoo3
The problem is not with what I have on the HD.
It was the same the last time this happened and I had just bought the computer.
I use it only for normal things, spreadsheets, letters, photos, no business use which
would use a great deal of space.

post

Sesame said:

I bought the iMAC in Costco at end November, 2011
It is just standard and has not been upgraded. The Dock is not divided.
AS I said before, the last time this happened the Apple expert told me it was a
"computer glitch", which does not help me put it right.

Click to expand...

Seeing as Costco are a wholesaler where did you go for the Apple Expert to fix it. AppleCare telephone support or to an Apple Store in the UK?
This is beyond my level I'm afraid, hope the gurus here can point you to a solution.

Sesame said:

Hi Pigoo3
The problem is not with what I have on the HD.
It was the same the last time this happened and I had just bought the computer.
I use it only for normal things, spreadsheets, letters, photos, no business use which
would use a great deal of space.

Click to expand...

On the contrary, the issue is entirely to do with that's on your HD. You have nearly filled up a 500 GB drive with or without your knowledge and are going to run into issues when you have low disk space left.

You might want to install Disk Inventory X with what little space you have and have it run and tell you where all your space is going. I would suggest that pigoo3 suggested once you figure out what is taking up space.

With just doing "normal" things, it is easy to fill up the disk..if you have thousands of pictures (in their highest quality) or videos or what have you..they can easily take up many GB's..

DiskInventoryX will give you a nice graphical representation of what's taking up the space, start with the biggest blobs and work your way down from there..

Sesame said:

Hi Pigoo3
The problem is not with what I have on the HD.
It was the same the last time this happened and I had just bought the computer.
I use it only for normal things, spreadsheets, letters, photos, no business use which
would use a great deal of space.

Click to expand...

Thus far in this thread...you reported that your computer is reporting that your hard drive is basically full. Once you said it had only 98meg free, and in another post you said it had 250meg free.

Whatever is happening (if you installed a lot of stuff or not)...which is making your hard drive almost full...your computer thinks it's hard drive is full.

Some things you can try:

- reset the PRAM
- reset the SMC
- repair permissions
- download & run ONYX (it's a 21meg maintenance program that hopefully is small enough for you to download & run)

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
Repairing permissions: What you need to know - Page 1 | Macworld
Titanium's Software • Download

- Nick

Hi MacGandalf
I phoned the Apple Store when this problem happened the last time and I think I will have to do so again. I was on the phone to a girl for sometime and then she said it was beyond her and put me on to her Line Manager who eventually fixed it.
Thanks for your help.

Problem with iMAc

Hi RazOrEdge
Thank you for your suggestion, I will try it but I really do not have a lot on my hard drive
Half dozen spreadsheets, Maybe 100 pictures and about 30 documents, not a huge amount I had more than this on my Windows PC and and it did not have the capacity of the iMAC.
Anyway as I say this has happened before when the machine was new.

Do install the SW and tell us what it says and we can help you proceed from there..