Hidden files?

fireball75fireball75
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I am hoping someone can help me to clean up my hard drive.



When I select the Get Info for the hard drive, I get the following:



total size: 149.04 GB

available: 10.64 GB

used: 138.4 GB



However, I have tried manually backing up my files, and when I look at the individual sizes of all the files on the hard drive, the total is about 85 GB.



Is there a possibility that there are files that do not show up in normal viewing? If so, is there a way to see them? If not, does anyone know what could be accounting for all the used space that does not appear to be accounted for?



Thanks for any help!



Oh, I am using a 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5, running OS X 10.5.7

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Depends on what you mean by "normal viewing." Depends on what you mean by "manual backup."



    It's not possible to tell from your description whether your backup included all of the System files. This can't be done by simple drag-copying. If you did that, you'll be missing a lot.



    My advice is to not sweat this. If you can't afford another drive, clear space by deleting stuff you don't need, and backup stuff you don't need ready access to. This is so much easier, and safer, than trying to diagnose what space is being filled by which files.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    fireball75fireball75 Posts: 2member
    Thanks for responding.



    By normal viewing, I just mean that I double-clicked on the hard drive, selected View as List, and specified that the file sizes be displayed. In the window, there is a list of everything (I think) that is on the hard drive, including the System files, but when I total those sizes it comes out to about 50 GB.



    I backed up my user files by dragging them onto an external hard drive. I did not back up the System files, since I had planned to wipe the disk clean and re-install the system.



    My concern is that there is still a lot of space unaccounted for. If I wipe the disk, will I be deleting files that are either a) needed for computer tasks, or b) are some of my personal files that have become invisible, but which I don't necessarily want to throw out altogether.



    Any ideas?





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    Depends on what you mean by "normal viewing." Depends on what you mean by "manual backup."



    It's not possible to tell from your description whether your backup included all of the System files. This can't be done by simple drag-copying. If you did that, you'll be missing a lot.



    My advice is to not sweat this. If you can't afford another drive, clear space by deleting stuff you don't need, and backup stuff you don't need ready access to. This is so much easier, and safer, than trying to diagnose what space is being filled by which files.



  • Reply 3 of 4
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Many files and directories, especially System files, are hidden to the Finder. If you insist on wiping the drive and reinstalling OSX (usually a huge waste of time, IMO), your best bet is to use a Time Machine backup to restore the user directories and anything else you want returned afterwards. Then you have to ask yourself why you bothered putting yourself through all of this.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    thinkingdifferentthinkingdifferent Posts: 1,604member
    The BSD directories are not shown in the Finder. These include /usr, /var and /tmp.
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