The case of the missing 18 GigaBytes IS SOLVED!!!

[weeddigger]

So I've been teetering on 15-20 GB of HD space on my MacBook Pro, 2.33GHZ, 3GB RAM. I fluctuate around the 15-20 cause I do a lot of garbage recordings that I end up deleting. I bring in new tunes and delete them all the time too.

Anyhow, today I was messing with my mac and it seemed really really slow...

I looked at the HD space available, and it's now like 266 MB...

I have no idea what the fuck happened... How do I track down this space that's seemed to have vanished on me?

Is there a way to see the last added files?

Thanks for your time...

[hurlingdervish]

trojan?

[weeddigger]

Couldn't have possibly been picked up while attempting to see how much the Pro Tools guys hate Ableton, right?!?

[trevorc]

this is worth a look for digging around for useless files:

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/

[H20nly]

been a while since I used a Mac, but on a PC when I've been troubleshooting weird issues like that I go to the root drive and start looking at the size of folders. You should be able to whittle it down to a specific location especially if its some huge file that you had still recording while you went to the grocery store and then stopped when you got back not realizing how big it had become.

If its a million little files... I'm gonna have to roll with Trojan or you accidently copied 'large folder' and now you would have 'large folder(2)'

[hacktheplanet]

Disk Inventory X is a program that presents a graphical representation of the files on your hard drive. If I notice an out of the ordinary amount of space missing, I can usually find it pretty quickly. It's usually a movie file or a directory of other crap I accidentally duplicated for some stupid reason.

Give it a try!

[hurlingdervish]

oh it should be mentioned that if you watch movies on those pirate sites streaming divx that the movie sometimes gets stored in your temporary files

i had a gig sitting there from watching pineapple express

also if you use stumble upon, that will rack up temp files too

[madhattared]

open terminal

type
cd /
du | sort -n

this shows the sizes of all directories sorted from smallest to biggest.

[serotoninsteve]

Decoding Cache?

Go to prefrences, empty your decoding cache and set a minimum free space on your hd.

Everytime you add a mp3 Live converts it to .wav.

[weeddigger]

Thanks for all the help, it's appreciated!

Anyhow, I ran Disk Inventory X, and I've located a file just about the size of what I think I'm missing.

I don't recognize any of the info associated with the file. Maybe you guys might have info on this?


It's a Log file, and this is it's file path:

Macintosh HD/private/var/log/windowserver_last.log


I can't seem to get to this either using spotlight...

[weeddigger]

[weeddigger]

Thanks again for the info guys!!

Your assistance is extremely appreciated!!!


I ended up finding this file, which was 18.7 GB... I deleted that fucker and I'm rocking now again.

[fishmonkey]

i'd keep an eye on that log file and see if it goes all humungous on you again...

if it does it would be worth checking it and finding out what is causing all the extreme logging...

[Atomikat]

Try to keep your HD with at least 20Gb minimum of free space, everytime my Macbook Pro has less than those 20Gb...starts to run slow.

[djsynchro]

It just works™