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Weird problem with hard drive size

ben1969 said:
Indeed, it was a very weird issue, and I'm just glad that the Terminal experts here are so generous with their time and expertise. The article that MacTech68 hyperlinked above is definitely worth reading.

As for the utilities, Grandperspective and OmniDiskSweeper definitely helped by letting me "see" the space that was missing. Getting to that Volume and trashing it absolutely required using Terminal. I was a bit nervous, having never really done much with Terminal, but it really was impressive what you can do if you know (or, at least others know) what to do.

Thanks again to all those who offered help. I really appreciate it.
Click to expand...
I have no problem using Terminal and am comfortable with bash. I just didn't think to look in /Volumes for the problem (I have no doubt that's what it was, and that SuperDuper was the culprit after my backuo drive disconnected).
 
@RaceTripper

Well, I'm envious of all you who can use Terminal so effectively. Is there a good guide to the basics of it? Just this one small experience really demonstrates to me what I've been hearing (or reading) about how essential it is to use Terminal.
 
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@RaceTripper

Excellent -- thanks for the guidance. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to help someone else out here for a change...
 
I certainly is a weird issue, and not one that I've come across before. There must be some way of preventing a folder from ending up in /Volumes, or at least a script via a cron job that could alert to the problem.

I've seen users put folders in some odd places accidentally ("The Volume Settings Folder" in OS9 was a good one), but never this particular one.
 
It's an amusing way to hide things you want to stay hidden. Make a folder /Volumes/Stuff/ put what you want in it, then mount a drive/partition there and it's hidden.

This method is also a rather old-school way to hide virus/rootkit applications on *nix based systems too :p
 
Now I have this problem

I started a thread on the Macbook forum, but after digging around, I discovered I have a similar problem, but unlike the OP, I discovered my /.Spotlight-V100 is using 78 GB. This seems to be the culprit, but now I have absolutely no idea what I can do about it. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
highdough said:
I started a thread on the Macbook forum, but after digging around, I discovered I have a similar problem, but unlike the OP, I discovered my /.Spotlight-V100 is using 78 GB. This seems to be the culprit, but now I have absolutely no idea what I can do about it. Any ideas? Thanks.
Click to expand...

In the other thread I started someone came up with a solution. I went into Spotlight preferences and added my Hard drive to the privacy list and then removed. Low and behold, all my space reappeared.

A big thanks to diazj3, who is now my personal hero.
 
Seen

highdough said:
In the other thread I started someone came up with a solution. I went into Spotlight preferences and added my Hard drive to the privacy list and then removed. Low and behold, all my space reappeared.

A big thanks to diazj3, who is now my personal hero.
Click to expand...


I have seen this before i believe it is super duper related. Once i was doing a huge 2TB backup, in the morning i was alarmed to see the warning "your start up disk is almost full" A bit of research led me to believe that somehow the backup was interrupted to an external drive super duper continued using my home folder. I tracked it down to an intermittent fault on an external drive enclosure.
 
MacTech68 said:
To see if you have an "un-real volume" problem.

Un-mount AND disconnect all your external drives.

In the finder, click on the "Go" menu in the menu bar, and select "Go to folder".

In the box that opens, type:

/Volumes

an click "Go".

In the window that opens, if you see a folder of any name, drag it to the desktop.

The /Volumes directory should only ever have Alias or symbolic links (shortcut files) to your volumes, NEVER an actual folder.

When a drive mounts, an alias to that volume is automatically placed in the /Volumes directory of your boot drive and is normal.
Click to expand...

Hi MacTech68,
Thanks for saving my ass. I owe you lunch, or at least, a beer! :D

A recent use (or mis-use) of SuperDuper to create a sparse bundle image file resulted in the errant file winding up in the /volumes/ directory as a file not an alias, and I didn't catch it at the time. Diagnostic apps such as jDiskReport and Grand Perspective found the Misc Used Space but offered no removal remedy.

So, hats off to ya, for posting that. Apple should incorporate your remedy into the appropriate help files.

Perth, by the way, is the home of Barrett Communications (Bibra Lake)!

Cheers,
Jack
 
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