# Startup Full?!



## jlewfirtree (Jul 12, 2008)

Hi,

I keep getting the message that my Startup is full!

I have a Macbook that is 2 years old. I recently purchased a Cannn 40D camera, and installed the necessary software to support it. In the past week I started shooting RAW images, which take up much more space. Immediately, I started recieving messages saying my startup was almost full, and not allowing me to continue downloading my images.

I have gone through my photos, and erased a HUGE amount. I also erased my movies, and ANY programs I do not use regularly (about 10 programs) INCLUDING one of the new image browsing devices. Today, the message keeps coming up, even when I am going through my itunes. So I erased about 15 albums worth of music.

I am tired of erasing everything! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!!!

Thanks for any help.


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

How much space is free on your hard drive? You can find out with Get Info (hold control, then click on your hard drive OR select your hard drive and go to the File menu, then Get Info). If it's your images filling up your hard drive that is causing the messages, your options are either delete stuff on your hard drive or get another hard drive.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

If you plan on doing a lot of shooting in RAW, the best thing to do is get an external hard drive to store everything on. Also, when was the last time you shutdown the Macbook? Shutting down the Mac will erase all the temporary files and caches, freeing up drive space. These files can get very large is the Mac has been left on for more than a week or so.


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## jlewfirtree (Jul 12, 2008)

Hi!

Thanks for your responses.

I have 1.35 GB of storage availible. I shut down my computer everyday.

I just bought a hard drive, but now I am in France and teh hard drive is in NYC!!!

Any other suggestions?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

I hope you have a DVD burner on that Mac, as that's the only thing that can help you. You should never have less than 5 gig free on your startup drive, I personally follow a 10% free rule on drives bigger than 60 gig. If you fill up too much more of that free 1.35 gig, then your Mac will not even be able to run well, if at all.


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## jlewfirtree (Jul 12, 2008)

Hi again!

Thanks so much for the help.

This is going to sound like a really dumb question. But I don't even know how to check my "start-up" capacity. All I do is click the Hard-drive icon on my desktop, and look at the bottom of the screen.

I am a good photographer, and good at sending emails and editing photos...but I'm not super computer saavy.

So, do you think if I just erased all of my RAW files (or converted them) that I wasn't crazy about, then this might clear up space?

Thanks


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Yes, that would clear up space. As for checking drive space, if you control (right) click on the hard drive icon, and then select get info, you'll get a window that will tell you have big the drive is, how much is used, and how much is free.


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## jlewfirtree (Jul 12, 2008)

Thanks again.

So I have 1.73 gb left out of 74 gb.

I just can't figure out how my hard drive got SO full. I really do not use the computer for much, just music and pictures. The only extra programs I run are Limewire and Photoshop.

When I installed this new camera, it came with several programs...2 image editors, an image viewer, etc. So now I have these devices, on top of those from my old point and shoot camera, as well as Iphoto.

Do you think that one of these new programs is what is overloading my computer? Should I do away with Iphoto altogether?

Sorry for asking so many questions....it is just that I really do not run many programs on this computer, and so I can't understand why all of a sudden I am up to my maximum capacity.

Thanks!


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

If you never use iPhoto, yes, you can drag it to the trash. But do remember that RAW photos take up a lot of space, as much as 500mb each or more, depending on the mode it was shot it. You can also save songs are between 3-5mb each as low quality mp3s, more space at higher bitrates. You can control (right) click on folders to bring up the get info, and it'll tell you how big each folder is. I's 1st check all the folders in your user directory and see which one is the bigest. I can tell you that music in my music folder alone is bigger than your hard drive. My iPhoto library of jpegs is over 20gig.


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## datechgeek (Jun 26, 2008)

use a program like Disk Inventory X to see which files are taking up the most space on your hard drive. i use it all the time when i start to see that i am running out of space


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