Memory Problem

[TNorris]

I am using a G5 Imac with osx tiger and have 148gb. I have had the machine for a few months and when i get info from the HD it tells me that i only have 23gb left. So i checked all the files on the HD and they are showing a total of 24gb, so how can this be? Somewhere along the line i am missing around 100gb.

Can anybody shed any light on this? Thanks

 

[Ric]

Hi there and welcome !

Can you click on you Hard Disk icon and then press Command + I then this will bring up an info window, then press Command + Shift + 4, then press the spacebar...your cursor should have now changed into a camera... place the camera over the info window and click...you should now have a picture of that on you desktop, please post it here so we can see it, it'll help !

There are a lot of invisible files and folders on you Mac that you are not meant to see ! These are probable taking up a chunk of that space...these run the System !

If you add up all the folders on your drive, they will not add up to what you think...

below are two pics one is my normal Hard Drive, and one is showing all the 'invisible' bits... if I were to add up the sum of all the folders on the second pic this would give the 'true' used figure...yours will be very similar !


Pic 1

Pic 2

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

Thanks for that here it is.......

 

[Ric]

If you look at my Pic 1, your HD will be similar if you click on each of the folders and get info, is this what is adding up to the 24 GB ?

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

If you look at my Pic 1, your HD will be similar if you click on each of the folders and get info, is this what is adding up to the 24 GB ?

regards

Ric

Im just trying to find out where all my memory is allocated to i did a control and 'I' with this and it comes to around 25gb.

 

[Ric]

Can you do a command + I on 'each of those folders in your pic, and add that up ?

I'm sure it will come to more than 25GB...

Then it will be time to do some cache clearing...

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

Next we'll download OnyX, here.

this will help us to clean a few caches...

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

Can you do a command + I on 'each of those folders in your pic, and add that up ?

I'm sure it will come to more than 25GB...

Then it will be time to do some cache clearing...

regards

Ric

Thanks, yes, the total is 26gb for all items in this folder.

What next?

 

[Ric]

OnyX is very powerful so just do these bits for now...

..using OnyX saves you having to type the commands into the Terminal so it makes it easier for most people.


1) Quit all open Apps and then restart...

2) Open OnyX and enter your password (this will be your login/admin password !)

3) Goto the 'Maintenance Tab' and set it up as I have...

...change bits if you want if you are happy with the terminology !

4) Restart

5) Back to OnyX, enter password and go to the Cleaning Tab...again, set it up as I have...

...change bits if you want if you are happy with the terminology !

6) Restart

See if we have gained any space back...

...always before doing any maintenance 'task' make sure your data is backed up, just in case !!!

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

Thanks Ric, appreciated. Lets hope this works.

 

[TNorris]

Thanks Ric, appreciated. Lets hope this works.

Well it has given me about half a meg extra. I really dont understand this surely these 'hidden' files do not take up 100gb.

 

[Ric]

No the proper hidden files don't take up a 100GB

Do you do much iMovie work ? Photoshop work etc?

There must be some cache/temp files that are clogging up your system ?

In the Finder click in the 'Go' menu 'Goto Folder and type in /private/tmp then press return, this will bring up on of the 'hidden folders' change the view so that you can see the list and post the pic if you can, thanks.

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

No the proper hidden files don't take up a 100GB

Do you do much iMovie work ? Photoshop work etc?

There must be some cache/temp files that are clogging up your system ?

In the Finder click in the 'Go' menu 'Goto Folder and type in /private/tmp then press return, this will bring up on of the 'hidden folders' change the view so that you can see the list and post the pic if you can, thanks.

regards

Ric

Thanks again, done this. I dont us eiMovie, just photoshop, illustrator and quark really.

 

[Ric]

Do you own and have recently run Norton's Anti Virus ?

If you have then have a read of this article.

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

Another option, try booting from the Tiger install DVD, and doing a "Repair Disk" and a "Repair Permissions"...

If you're not sure what I mean let me know...

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

You could also download Disk Sweeper, this allows you to look at your whole hard drive and 'spot' the any big files that shouldn't be there...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/vt3/8667

regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

You could also download Disk Sweeper, this allows you to look at your whole hard drive and 'spot' the any big files that shouldn't be there...

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/vt3/8667

regards

Ric

Thanks again.

I ran the latter programme and found out what it is. It found a file in Private - Temp and its called space suckerxxx.

What is this and should i simply delete it?

Thanks

 

[Ric]

It' a temp file left behind by Nortons Anti Virus, have a read of this article.

It tells you how to delete it...

Then get rid of Nortons...they are no good with OS X Tiger...


regards

Ric

 

[TNorris]

It' a temp file left behind by Nortons Anti Virus, have a read of this article.

It tells you how to delete it...

Then get rid of Nortons...they are no good with OS X Tiger...


regards

Ric

Thanks again, this has worked, could you recommend any programmes i should be using to protect/scan my Mac in the future?

 

[Ric]

Hi,

as I said previously, Nortons wants taking off your Mac...

As far as Virus software, you don't need any. There are no current known viruses (viri ?), for the Mac.

We have had viruses in the past, way back in the early 90's (WDEF was one of them), that at the time caught most Mac users out because the Mac community thought that there wasn't any viruses so why bother, Nortons sold a few extra copies that year !

I personally don't run any anti-virus software on any of my Macs...

Best to just keep an eye on place's such as Symantec. They normally will be able to tell you if there is a Virus for the Mac faster than you can 'catch' it. Then if there is you can just buy some software then...

Maintenance software...

Again I personally don't use a lot of Software, I let the Mac take care of most things it self. Every time you restart your Mac, certain maintenance tasks are carried out for you. You can 'force' thes tasks to happen if you want just type

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

and then press return and enter your password when prompted.

I have numerous pieces of software for all different 'occasions'...

For Data Recovery I tend to use DataRescue II , this is used more for recovering other peoples data on other peoples Mac's. I have numerous backup strategies ;-)

It is a handy tool to have though if for some reason you accidently delete something, then DataRescue will normally retrieve it.

I also have TechTool Pro , but personally I very rarely use it on my own Macs, generally I use it for fault diagnosis on other peoples machines. It has some nice features not unsimilar to the old Nortons Utilities software.

The S.M.A.R.T test's it does are very good, if you hard drive is 'newish' then it may have a special chip on it, most do now, TechTool can monitor this chip, and it let's you know if the drive is about to 'die'. Thus giving you time to backup etc.

The best software you can/should own is backup software, as long as you have good backup's then 'preventative maintenance' is not particularly necessary.

Generally speaking I use Disk Utility the most, (Applications-->Utilities), every time you want to install any new software you are always best doing a repair disk permissions first, and then run it again once the software has been installed.

You want to boot from the original DVD and then run it, it works better this way. If you have a spare Hard Drive you could always use that to boot from and then run it, thats what I do it's quicker than the DVD.

regards

Ric