MacBook Pro :: Won't Boot / Not Enough Space - How To Access Hard Drive To Remove Files
Jun 30, 2014
I can't boot my MacBook Pro. My hard drive is completely full. I was running a software update and didn't realize how big the file was. The computer shut off part of the way through the update and hasn't booted up since. How can I access the files on this drive to make some space?
I am running mavericks, but I don't know which version. I purchased a cable to access the internal drive through a USB on another computer. The drive shows up in disk utility, but will not let me browse the drive.
My Macbook Pro (10.9.3) wouldn't boot up. I'd get the gray spinning progress indicator along with a gray progress bar which would get about 10% through and then restart.
I booted into recovery mode and run Disk Utility to repair the disk and got a message saying can't repair, back up your files.
So I took the HDD out and mounted it as an external drive on my Mac Mini (10.9.3). I got a message saying it's read only and I should back up my files. I can browse to my users directory and see all the base folders (Movies, Music, Docs, etc), but there's a red no entry icon on all the folders and accessing them through Finder shows they are empty.
I browsed the files through Terminal as super user and can see the files. I can also copy the files through Terminal. However, after copying a test directory some of the files are read only and others are still no access.
So the question is, how do I back up these files and maintain permissions?
I don't know what's taking up so much room on my startup disk, I get an error message saying i'm full up and now a couple of programs are having trouble opening. I've spent two days dragging files into the trash and dumping them, wouldn't you think that would have cleared some space?
I'm thinking about installing Windows 7 on my hard drive using Bootcamp. I'd like to know if in the future I decide to remove windows, am I able to remove the partition and revert back to the full hard drive space or not?
After deleting windows 7, I went back into boot camp to merge partitions and after that operation completed, the 32gb of space that was used for the partition was gone. I tried using the disk utility to find second partition but can't, it only recognizes the partition that mac osx is on and says it is 120gb capacity when hard drive is 150 gb. I would like to format the entire hard drive and have it as one partition again
I cannot believe I am actually in this position, but I accidentally reformatted my lacie 1TB external HD. The files were not overwritten as it was the most basic and quick format option, but they are not accessible.
Can anyone recommend a good data recovery app that works for OS X?
Anyone know what the best course of action would be?
I recently got rid of a partition I had made for bootcamp since I never use it, and would rather have the space back. I deleted the partition through disc utility, and then through the partition tab, tried to get back that space by dragging down the tab to restore the space originally set for the partition. When I go to apply this change, it notifies that my hard drive will be re-sized. I accept and then a few minutes later it comes back with the error "Partition failed with the error: Filesystem verify or repair failed" Does anybody know how I can restore this space successfully back into my main hard drive? I've attached some screenshots
I have a MacBook Pro with a 500GB HD with only 76 GB of space left. I moved 200GB of movie files to an external drive then deleted the movie files from my Mac so I could free up the space on the HD. For some reason the HD still shows only 76GB of space available even though the entire movie folder was deleted. Is there something I need to do to get finder to update the GB available?
So I ran Disk Utility and ran the disk repair on my Western Digital external hard drive. After I did this all my files have disappeared, but it still shows that all the space that was taken up before is still being occupied. Is there any way I can recover my files? I am getting really distressed about it because I have almost 500 gbs of data that I don't know if I can get back or not.
I need to free up room on my hard drive. I would like to delete all my .ipa apps. Can I do that? I have itunes match, and I also sync to icloud. I know when I want to reinstall an app I just do that through the cloud. I have deleted apps to test that this is ok but the apps end up getting reinstalled. Here is what I want to do:
1. delete all my .ipa files on my computer to save a lot of hard drive space (I have a lot of apps....)
2. stop syncing to my computer, and only sync to icloud
3. rely on itunes match for backing up music
4. have calendar and contacts sync through icloud
5. if I need to reinstall apps do that through the tab on the app store for 'purchases.'
I only have like 8 gb left on my macbook's hard drive. Are there any programs I can run that will defrag/free up space? How much does Apple Store typically charge to upgrade a hard drive? How easy is it to do myself?
Recently my computer has been constantly showing these pop up information boxes with, "your hard disk does not have enough space" and suggests removing files from your startup disk. What is a start up disk? How can I make room? What is taking up so much space? I don't really download anything major?
My 500gb iMac (purchased April 2010) is about at capacity. 350gb of space is taken up by home movies (.mov) in iMovie. I bought an external hard drive and have moved about 200gb over to that drive.
After transfer, I deleted the original Events off iMovie and emptied the trash. I checked in both iMovie and in Finder and no longer see those files present on the Mac.
I thought this was going smooth and everything worked perfectly, but….when i went to check how much storage space i created on the Mac, the amount of available space barely budged (i moved 200gb of data to the new drive and i created about 30gb of space on the Mac).
Are these "deleted" files hidden somewhere and I need to go delete from somewhere else? How do I make sure I get back the storage that i need?
I bought a new 500GB WD hard drive for my Late 2008 MacBook to upgrade from my 250GB drive. I have a hard drive enclosure, but I was wondering if when I install my 500GB hard drive, would I be able to use the enclosure to transfer files from my 250GB drive? I hope this was specific enough to get a clear response. If not, I'll try re-wording my question.
When using the Disk Utility free space wipe to wipe sensitive data (using the 7 times option), I thought that would be sufficient.
I was wondering though, does the free space wipe option also wipe the slack files on the hard drive? Is this even an issue for a Mac? (I know on Windows the slack file needs to be wiped for a completely secure erase, right?)
How do I get more hard drive space? I've already taken heaps of stuff off but I can't delete Apps in the Application folder like chess which I never use.
Running Snow Leopard on a Late 2007 MacBook, and I booted it up today to see that I had 15 GB left (normal). 4 hours later, I get an alert that I'm running low on Hard Disk space, so I open a new Finder window to see how much space I have. It tells me 10 MB. After 5 minutes, this dropped down to 0 KB, and all of my applications opened "paused", and I had to force quit them. I don't have 0 KB left, I have 15 GB, but Finder isn't telling me that.
I got a 2007 white MacBook, and I only have about 4GB HD space left. And that's after I did some emergency clearing out. It's obvious I need a new one, or to clear out more. I'm thinking both.I just got the free version of CleanMyMac, is that a good program to clear my HD out with?And, if I only want a drive that's 200GB-300GB, how much will a reliable one run me? I've seen 1TB drives for ?70, but I'm not sure if they're the right size for the MB.
I have a mbp and a 500 (439)gb hard drive, i used diskwave to check my hard drive and this is what it came up with: Mac.. HD Capacity: 439GBUsed: 392.92GB Users: 186.53GBApplications: 19.94GBLibrary: 7.11GBSystem: 3.89GB
You do the math.. that should be around 210GB!! where is the rest going? THE TRASH IS EMPTY FOR CERTAIN!
I have a 500GB hardrive with 400GB being used. I can account for around 100GB for videos, movies, pojects, and applications. So basically there is about 300GB of taken up space thats unaccounted for. I don't know what could be taking up the space. If anyone can help me locate the data or know of a program to do it that would be awesome.
Im having a problem with my HD on my MacBook Air 2011 with 128Gb SSD and Lion.
Since about a month after I purchased my computer, I started to notice low HD space. I started managing it but couldnt keep it with more than 15 Gb of space. I transfered my biggest file, a Parallels Desktop virtual machine to an external HD. I have disabled Time Machine and have removed most of my files from the computer. My User folder barely uses 27 Gb of HD Space. The Get Info shows that I have used 90.84 Gb and have 29.63 Gb Free. But when I try to add all of the folders from the HD (Applications, Library, Syste, Users) it comes with a 42.42 Gb used number.
I tried lots of programs like Disk Inventory X, WhatSize, OmniDisk Sweeper, etc, and all come up with an aprox. 43.38 used Gb number, so there is no discrepancy between these programs and what Finder is telling me. Here is a screenshot I took with WhatSize.
Where is the rest of the space going? Im lost on what to do to empty space.
I am a long time PC user that just recently got a MacBook Pro. I am out of space on my hard drive and not sure exactly what is eating up all the volume? I went to About This Mac and looked at the Macintosh HD and it says I only have 28GB out of 499GB available. The piece that is using up lion's share is all yellow "Other". How do I find out what is causing this? Is there an easy way to determine what file is chewing up my hard drive?
I'm not the most computer savy guy in the world but I thought I'd ask the question. Is there a way to remove the hard drive from an old MacBook I have that stopped working (the plug where the power cord goes in is messed up nothing is wrong with the hard drive I believe) and use that hard drive as an external hard drive for my new(ish) iMac and use it for extra space? It would be amazing if I could. Anyone know how I can do this?
I'm the owner of a Macbook Pro with 4 gig RAM and a 320gb harddrive. However, I have noticed that the hard drive space is decreasing slightly for seemingly no reason. Case in point, today it went from 197.66gb to 197.50 whilst I was watching TV and just before it went down further for no reason whatsoever.
Although its not a big deal it does arouse my curiosity and annoy me. Is it just virtual memory that will eventually come back or something more sinister? If it continues for a long time the space lost will eventually add up. Since I'm planning on soon buying an iMac these are the sorts of things I need to know.
