Clogged up hard drive, but where are the files?

[Winston]

My wife's G4 iMac runs 10.5. It has a 250 GB hard drive (233 GB formatted). Right now it shows 3.59 GB available. But when I go to the top level of the Finder and look at the various folders (Applications, Users, System, etc.) the drive should be largely empty.

I have had problems before with OS X not showing correct folder size info on User folders except for the user who is logged in. But I'd think the top level Users folder would be right.

How can I find out what's filling up the drive?


Thanks.

- Winston

[ztirffritz]

Try Disk Inventory X

http://www.derlien.com/

[Black]

ztirffritz wrote:
Try Disk Inventory X

http://www.derlien.com/

Agree-- love this app.
Derlein.com seems to be offline-- alternate source:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14393/disk-inventory-x

[voodoopenguin]

Most likely not the case here but it's been the very simple answer to similar problems I have fixed for many people, make sure the Trash is empty.

Paul

[M>B>]

Good one Paul, after all the trash is just another folder with a trash icon, we users tend to store stuff in the trash and tend to store to much on the desktop too!!!

[RAMd®d]

It will show all files, even hidden ones, and give you access to to them very easily.

Sometimes it's as simple as a rogue of file.

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

[Speedy]

Diskwarrior.

[Winston]

Black wrote:
[quote=ztirffritz]
Try Disk Inventory X

http://www.derlien.com/

Agree-- love this app.
Derlein.com seems to be offline-- alternate source:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14393/disk-inventory-x

Thanks. Disk Inventory X is what I'd found Googling around, but I couldn't find a working source to download it and thought maybe it had gone away. It's running now.


- Winston

[Winston]

voodoopenguin wrote:
Most likely not the case here but it's been the very simple answer to similar problems I have fixed for many people, make sure the Trash is empty.

Paul

But shouldn't what's in the trash still show up as part of a user's folder?

I'm trying to avoid having to log into each user's folder (8 of them) individually to review the files.

Thanks.

- Winston

[Winston]

RAMd®d wrote:
It will show all files, even hidden ones, and give you access to to them very easily.

Sometimes it's as simple as a rogue of file.

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Looks like another good suggestion. Downloading it now for comparison.

Thanks!

- Winston