The Strange Case of the Missing Disk Space

[cbiles]

Hi,
I am new to the forum and should be grateful for any advice regarding a lack of disk space on my Mac.

It is telling me that I have used up 289GB, leaving only 8.5GB of space free. And yet when I go into finder and look at what is using up all this memory the total only adds up to around 120GB.

I have used Disk Inventory X to investigate but that is saying exactly the same i.e. that I have used 289GB but when it shows the volume it only shows 120GB.

I have made sure that all trash has been emptied and that time machine is backing up on an external drive but nothing seems to help. The lack of fee space is now getting to be a problem.

Any suggestions on what to do or where to look would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[chscag]

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

When you post, it's very helpful to tell us about your Mac and which version of OS X you're running.

Are you running Lion? If you are, Lion Time Machine will continue making backups even if your external Time Machine drive is not attached. That quickly uses up disk space.

 

[cbiles]

Hi.

It is a Mac Pro running with OS X version 10.5.8 and a 2.4 GHz intel Core 2 Duo processor. I haven't been able to upgrade to Lion so it is still on Leopard.

Thanks

 

[chscag]

Disk Inventory X and Grand Perspective are not very good at finding disk space that's buried. The best application (one which I use) is "WhatSize", however, it's not free ($12.99) like Disk Inventory X or Grand Perspective. Here is the link to the download.

You may have a load of hidden files or folders stuffed somewhere on the drive which probably can be deleted to free up space. The Finder does not show you hidden folders and files.

 

[cbiles]

Thanks. I will give it a try.

 

[zacster]

Do you have multiple accounts on that computer? If so, you may not be seeing the space used by the alternate account.

 

[cbiles]

You are right. The Mac was not letting me view the other accounts. Going into What Size as Administrator, I can finally see where all the disk space has gone - a lot of it on duplicate photos and SIMS 3!! Problem solved. Thanks for the help.