Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!locke.mmwb.ucsf.edu!kscott From: kscott@cgl.ucsf.edu (Kevin Scott) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: VANISHED! 12 Mb on a 80 Mb Hard Disk Keywords: hard disk space missing Message-ID: Date: 28 Jul 90 17:47:54 GMT References: <1990Jul24.202754.13288@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> <3022@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> <1990Jul26.133922.17987@cec1.wustl.edu> <841@earth.cs.utexas.edu> <26296@unix.cis.pitt.edu> Sender: daemon@cgl.ucsf.edu Lines: 17 There is the possibility someone played a bad joke on you. Do you leave your machine open for others to use? It is possible to create enough folders to fill up a disk without showing any disk space being used, but this is something that would not normally occur unless you have a malevolent and patient prankster (in order to take up 12 megs, this would take half an hour). The only way I have found to retrieve the disk space (I experimented with a floppy) is to reinitialize the disk. I wouldn't worry about the minimum block size, it would take a lot of small files to give you 12 megs worth of unused space (if you wasted a maximum of 2k per file, this would still be 6000 files, enough that you would be noticing other problems). Good Luck, but if you are hoping to find a way to get your 12 meg back without doing a full backup and restore, I think you might end up waiting more time than it is worth to have the machine out of commission. Kevin Scott kscott@socr.mmwb.ucsf.edu