I just inherited an older, used Macbook Air and I'm cleaning it up for use. Why does HD only show 30 GB when it should be 121 GB?

[liveMike]

As the title mentions, I received an older (Early 2014 MacBook Air OS X Yosemite) from my daughter when she bought a new MacBook. I'm not very knowledgeable on Macs but I know some basics.

The 'About this Mac' window shows the hard drive should be 121 GB, but looking at the storage, it appears I only have 30 GB available to me (I can't even explore the other 90 GB to see what is using the space).

I have attached a screenshot showing some information that will hopefully be useful.

Any help that can be provided in figuring out how to access the mystery 90 GB would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nurgle2024]

have you checked the downloads folder.. some systems installers downloaded huge file that would then not cleanup and remove.
regards, Sandy

 

[liveMike]

Thanks for replying. Yes, I checked the downloads folder, there was only about 30 MB worth of stuff in there, and it's already been deleted.

 

[Nurgle2024]

next obvious, is duplicated files..aliased folder with duplicates etc.. iPhone upgrade backups etc. also look in the documents folders.. book files etc. also check the font folder. (I have over 20,000, but then I do typesetting)

sorry if you have already checked.

there are duplicate file fining apps on App Store. you can download them a get a free trial run which may give you an idea of whet may be where.

regards

 

[liveMike]

Yeah, I checked those things (ran OmniDiskSweeper to look into all that). The problem with the missing storage doesn't seem to be in my active drive where all that stuff would be kept, which is shown in the center of the screenshot above. On that active drive the other/apps/photos/audio/movies/backup shown in the screen shot take up only about ~20 GB of space, and that isn't really what I'm concerned about.

If you look on the left part of that middle screenshot it says, "121 GB Flash Storage", that's the total amount I should have... but over on the right it says, "8.38 GB free of 29.63 GB"... that's the part I'm wondering about. Why is it "8.38 GB free of 29.63 GB" instead of "8.38 GB free of 121 GB"?

If you look at the 'DiskUtil list' command output in the screen shot on the right, the /dev/disk1 "Apple_HFS Macintosh HD" drive on the lower part of the screenshot appears to be that active drive, (judging by the fact that it shows exactly the same amount of available GB 29.6). It's the all that other space on /dev/disk0 at the top of the right-hand screenshot that I'm wondering why I don't have access to, (I can't even explore into it to see what it is).

 

[Nurgle2024]

Hi, in that case it is holding that memory in reserve... can you start the Mac in safe mode. don't remember what keys. and try and 'eject' those phantom storage disks.

 

[liveMike]

I know holding shift while rebooting starts the Mac in safe mode, but how would I go about ejecting the storage disks?

 

[Nurgle2024]

that is beyond me. .. sorry. need a real Mac person for that/

 

[liveMike]

Well, thank you for trying! Hopefully someone comes along that may know what is going on.

 

[Nurgle2024]

do you have another Mac, and boot this problem one up in "Target Mode" as an external disk.. or an external boot disk drive.?

I know how frustrating it can be to have something that stumps you.