Macintosh HD question

[jif]

here's the screenshot of the 2 users...

I havent installed file vault intentionally, but I'm concerned I may have done it without realising as there was a vault.dmg in my user account that I deleted a while ago

 

[bobtomay]

Looks to me like there are 2 complete directories of your entire hard drive on there.

Next I'd be looking in Finder to see what it looks like there - with and without showing hidden files and comparing the two user folders to verify they are the same.

Then I'd be creating a CCC or SD! backup and try deleting the copy.

 

[jif]

yeah, Ive looked in finder, the 'volume' directory is hidden and it appears to be a complete copy...

I don't know how to hide/unhide files in OSX ??

and, can I ask what a CCC and SD. back up is lol

I have a time machine attached to the mac, which backs up to a external HDD

 

[bobtomay]

To show hidden files you can use the Terminal - copy and paste:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Press Return
Then right click on the Finder icon and select Relaunch.

To reverse it - same process with:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

Are you sure you have Lion 10.7? Looks like a "Previous Folder" you'd get from an archive and install with the previous versions of OS X. But, as far as I know, it's not possible with Lion.

CarbonCopyCloner - SuperDuper!: each will create a bootable clone of your internal drive. I use SD! and TM.

 

[jif]

I've deffo got OSX lion installed, but I've installed it over snow leopard, which was preinstalled when I got my mac

I'm on my iPad at the mo, but will look into the hidden files and report back

I'll look into CCC and SD too


I owe you some beer mr bobtomay...

 

[AppleCider]

Are you sure WhatSize isn't reading the external drive? That's the only way I could think of that would show up as a whole copy of your drive. Try ejecting the drive, and running WhatSize again.

 

[jif]

I couldn't get the terminal to show hidden files. When I copy the code into terminal, I get a reply

unknown-c8-2a-14-00-1f-49:~ jeff$

I've never used terminal before and therefore probably not doing it right, but as a result I can't see the volume dir in finder. From looking at WhatSize it looks like the data in volume is an exact copy of my mac HD

I've downloaded SD! but as I use my only external HD as a time machine, and my mac HD is full, I have nowhere to back it up to...

AppleCider... yeah, I've checked it with my 1TB time machine ejected

 

[bobtomay]

Download Onyx - it's a good free maintenance app to have around and you can use it to show and hide hidden files without messing with the terminal - it's actually what I use to do it.

Grab the Lion version that's not beta.

Not at a Mac currently so can't tell you the specific tab name to head to - but I think it's the last tab after you open it up.

 

[jif]

i tried again with terminal and worked out how to show hidden files, I've backed up the time machine and deleted the hidden 'volume', and I'm emptying the trash as i type. I'll reboot once its done and report back

edit - i've got onyx which i use occasionally to clean out, following a recommendation from here

(trash is still emptying... gulp)

 

[jif]

well it restarted ok...

WhatSize now say's my Mac HD is using 403gb with 595gb available

and activity monitor says I got 596gb of free space.. that sounds about right

will I have caused any damage or problems deleting that 'volume'

 

[bobtomay]

Since you were able to reboot after deleting it and you're back up to your desktop, I would take a 70-30 guess and say you're probably ok. But, I really don't have a clue and it may depend on how/what happened to create the duplicate in the first place.

I'd probably spend about an hour now just experimenting by opening and closing a bunch of different apps, documents, your iTunes stuff, etc. If it all works, then I'd breathe a big sigh of relief.

I tried duplicating that yesterday on a system I could play with and it wouldn't let me copy itself into the same path yours was showing.

 

[jif]

everything seems to be working fine

can't thank you enough bobtomay

top man