18th August 2012
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#1 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 172
Thread Starter | External hard drive won't free up space after deleting files
I asked this question on the Mac forums, but got no responses. So here it goes: my old Maxtor 500 Gb external hard-drive won't free-up any space after deleting many, many files. I'm using a late 2009 iMac i5 desktop with Snow Leopard. I had 6 Time Machine backups of my old MacBook Pro on the drive - each taking up roughly 70-80 Gb of space. I deleted 3 of the Time Machine backups (which were mostly my music files)?as they were close enough in date to other backups so I wasn't going to lose any data. This should have freed up more than 200 Gb of space on the external hard drive. However, the hard drive still shows having only 10 Gb of space available. I deleted the Trash from the Dock. The Trash is empty. I unmounted the hard drive, turned it off and reconnected it. I restarted the computer. Still no change. Please help me. Thanks!
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18th August 2012
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#2 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Apr 2009 Location: Rio de Janeiro
Posts: 209
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Try putting something in the trash then empty it with the drive connected.
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18th August 2012
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#3 | | Shark Sandwich
Joined: Dec 2009 Location: Gig City
Posts: 2,050
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EMPTY the trash.
As long as it's in the trash, it remains in the drive's TOC and is not free space.
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18th August 2012
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#4 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 172
Thread Starter |
I have emptied the trash many times with and without the drive connected since I initially deleted the files several nights ago.
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18th August 2012
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#5 | | Shark Sandwich
Joined: Dec 2009 Location: Gig City
Posts: 2,050
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I missed that in your op.
I'm stumped.
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18th August 2012
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#6 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2012 Location: Switzerland
Posts: 227
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1. delete files from HD
2. not just delete your trash, delete it the "secure" way... with finder
3. open the HD utility programm -> Application -> Utilities
4. chose the drive on the left... and set desired options for deleting files.
this may take some minutes, because you can overwrite files up to 35x :-)
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18th August 2012
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#7 | | Shark Sandwich
Joined: Dec 2009 Location: Gig City
Posts: 2,050
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Took me a minute to find the above suggestion.
Maybe this will help.
Disk utility -> select the partition on your drive (not the root drive) -> "Erase" tab -> Erase Free Space
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18th August 2012
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#8 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2012 Location: Switzerland
Posts: 227
| Quote:
Originally Posted by recordinghopkins  (not the root drive) | 
yes! that's it...
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18th August 2012
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#9 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 172
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by Miles Flint 1. delete files from HD
2. not just delete your trash, delete it the "secure" way... with finder
3. open the HD utility programm -> Application -> Utilities
4. chose the drive on the left... and set desired options for deleting files.
this may take some minutes, because you can overwrite files up to 35x :-) | I'm not deleting disk from my HD. I'm try to delete from my EXTERNAL HD. I did it by going directly into the external HD, deleting the Time Machine backups. Went into the trash, saw them there, then emptied the Trash. But no change in available space on the EXTERNAL drive.
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18th August 2012
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#10 | | Gear addict
Joined: Jan 2012 Location: Huntington Beach, CA
Posts: 427
| Quote:
Originally Posted by aligak I'm not deleting disk from my HD. I'm try to delete from my EXTERNAL HD. I did it by going directly into the external HD, deleting the Time Machine backups. Went into the trash, saw them there, then emptied the Trash. But no change in available space on the EXTERNAL drive. | It doesn''t matter how your drive is connected, the method is the same. I could do this with a USB stick if I wanted to.
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18th August 2012
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#11 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 172
Thread Starter |
Ok I will try but when I delete from a USB stick, I simply delete from Viewer, then empty the Trash and it's done. But not the same case here.
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18th August 2012
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#12 | | Gear interested
Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 9
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Hey, are the files still in the trash when you have the ext hdd connected? After you've tried emptying I mean..
It could be a number of things causing this:
1. Could be a permissions issue with one file within the TM backups preventing you from emptying trash.
2.could also be an issue with the sparse image created when you have a TM backup (basically a TM backup is a disk image). This could likened to a failing partition and can cause any sort of different issues eg. Unable to unmount, remove files, trash files, view files etc.
Basically as suggested use the utility app called disk utility. Run a verify disk and a permissions check/repair on the external hdd partition in question. Before doing this I would advise copying your data to another drive if you have one. Try emptying trash again.
If this doesn't show anything unusual or fix the issue you could then attempt to force empty trash. You can do this via a key command, and if still not working you can force empty through the terminal application (utility app also). There is an apple support article explaining how to do this. Maybe stay away from terminal if you're unsure of bash/command prompt.
If still not resolved, transfer data you want to keep to another drive, erase the external hdd/repartition and start over. This will definitely fix anything that could be causing it.
Hope this helps, bit of info I know. Last suggestion is a last resort. And without knowing more I could have missed something simple...
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18th August 2012
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#13 | | Gear interested
Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 9
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One more thing, you might have done this, if not it might be a good idea to just command+i all your main folders on the ext hdd to just account for the space/or lack of...
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19th August 2012
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#14 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2012 Location: Switzerland
Posts: 227
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunjji It doesn''t matter how your drive is connected, the method is the same. I could do this with a USB stick if I wanted to. | it doesn't matter what type of drive you want to delete files from, and how it is conected - as mentioned in Bunjji's post. when I do backups manually it's the only way to get rid of the old files. give it a try.
cheers
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20th August 2012
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#15 | | Shark Sandwich
Joined: Dec 2009 Location: Gig City
Posts: 2,050
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Miles Flint ...it's the only way to get rid of the old files. |
huh?  | |
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20th August 2012
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#16 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 172
Thread Starter |
I can't find Disk Utility. In fact, the only application I can find in the Utilities folder is Activity Monitor. I have no idea why. I've searched for Disk Utility and it's gone. I can't reinstall the operating system because I don't have enough space on the external HD to backup my system. And I can't free up space on my external HD either. Grrr!!! The reason I don't use Windows anymore is to make my life easier, but sometimes Mac's can be a huge pain as well.
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20th August 2012
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#17 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Aug 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA  |
Boot up off the OSX installer DVD and run Disk Utility off the DVD
Rail
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20th August 2012
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#18 | | Gear interested
Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 9
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Use the install disc as suggested and run disk utility off that. Before that do a spotlight search for it, just incase you've accidentally moved it into another folder.
Using the erase free space command in disk utility will likely not help. All it is doing is performing a 'secure erase' ie. writing ones and zeros over the empty space so your trashed files can't be recovered. This also goes for the secure empty trash option in finder too.
Try what I suggested in disk utility from your install disc.
If nothing seems to be working though than the quickest way to fix the problem will be to get another external hdd (you'll likely end up needing another eventually anyway), copy your current external hdd to the new one. After that reformat the old hdd and start over.
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10th March 2013
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#19 | | Gear interested
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1
| Delete "Deleted" files from external drive using MAC
RE: Maxtor external drive does not delete "deleted" files: - Select the drive image from the desktop.
- Select Finder > Empty Trash.
- Voila.
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10th March 2013
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#20 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,106
| Quote:
Originally Posted by aligak I can't find Disk Utility. In fact, the only application I can find in the Utilities folder is Activity Monitor. I have no idea why. I've searched for Disk Utility and it's gone. I can't reinstall the operating system because I don't have enough space on the external HD to backup my system. And I can't free up space on my external HD either. Grrr!!! The reason I don't use Windows anymore is to make my life easier, but sometimes Mac's can be a huge pain as well. | I think you have OS issues and need a reinstall, without the disk utility you can't even repair disks and permissions.( could be your real issue. )
Get a new hardrive for backup.  | |
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11th March 2013
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#21 | | Gear interested
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 2
| Quote:
Originally Posted by gdoubleyou I think you have OS issues and need a reinstall, without the disk utility you can't even repair disks and permissions.( could be your real issue. )
Get a new hardrive for backup. | Look for hidden files in your systemdrive. I use a free tool called TinkerTool. Look for redundant 'volumes' folder related to drive not functioning. Delete that folder and see if the space reappears.
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