Something hogging disk space but dont know what

[sidewinder]

Got a few Macbooks running standalone for drama, we dont see them very often, but they have brought one up because its running out of room for their video editing.

Finder reports that 12.7GB is free (111GB drive), so I assumed someone had just left a few massive movies on there.
So I loaded up Disk Inventory X and ran it, and it states that only 38.6GB is being used?!

Where is all this extra space? Could someone have encrypted something or are there locations that Disk Inventory cannot pick up?

[rolfea]

Have you tried zeroing the free space? Or also known as deleting free space.

Found out not long ago that delete files still use disk space.
So even though it's been deleted, and even be removed from the trash, it is technically still on the disk drive.

In the disk utility there is an option to erase free space (sounds odd, I know). It's under the erase tab when the volume is selected.

[Geoff]

Also consider using
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

[sidewinder]

Thanks, tried doing the free space and no difference.

Also, used GrandPerspectiv and it gives much the same result as Disk Inventory - shows there is only apparantly 38.5GB on the disk

[Geoff]

broken hdd perhaps? Or a hidden partition?

[HodgeHi]

are they boot camped? If so check the windows partition as it tends to grow for some unknown reason. I know a couple of mine did.

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

On the affected Mac launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and issue this command:

sudo du -chxd 1 /

Provide the local admin password when prompted. Don't worry if you don't see anything being types as there is no echo in terminal. It's normal. Be patient as the command can take some time to run. When complete it will give you a complete breakdown with sizes of every file and directory including BSD on the hard drive. I'm guessing a runaway log has bloated to some ridiculous size? You'll find it in /var/log.

Antonio Rocco (ACSA)

[DMcCoy]

Not forgetting that you can't actually read the contents of the other users folders when logged in as a normal admin user, Are there multiple accounts used on the machine? The cache folders in the user areas can get quite big, especially with internet cache files etc.

[sidewinder]

Not forgetting that you can't actually read the contents of the other users folders when logged in as a normal admin user, Are there multiple accounts used on the machine? The cache folders in the user areas can get quite big, especially with internet cache files etc.

I didnt realise this Assumed admin could see all accounts folders. And yes, there is an account for each year group. Logged on as each, and the amount of data tallys up. So it was just me being an idiot

Thanks for everyones help.