Severe Mac OS X problem

[liorean]

I've got a major problem on my hands, and was wondering if any of you know of a way to handle something like this. I'm using filevault and have all my non-system files in directories in my home directory. Now, filevault claims space as you place files in it, and then asks whether it should reclaim unused space after logging out (temporary files etc.). Now, I recently did a few moves of files from my PC to my Mac, and ended up at about 1.3 GB left. I left iTunes playing MP3s from a DVD, which turned out to not be a smart move. After playing for a few hours, iTunes had claimed all 1.2 GB on my harddrive, filling precicely every byte on the harddrive (temporary files, sigh). The problem is, now that I have absolutely no space left, and since the system needs some bytes to store data at log out time, I can't log out, I can't do a warm restart, and I can't halt the system - which means that filevault can't reclaim the space that iTunes no longer uses, and which is in fact empty.

So, is there any way of forcing filevault to reclaim space while logged in as that user? Or to tell it to reclaim that space at the time for a cold restart, before logging in, instead of after logging out? Or to make it reclaim the space by remote log in from a PC?


(And before you ask, yes, I did search for tips on this both on the net and in the Apple support. And no, I couldn't find anything on my particular problem, or how to hande it.)

[gsnedders]

I think I came across a way which you could do what Filevault does in Terminal, which might sort your problem.

[liorean]

I removed iPhoto and iMovie (I never use those anyway), which made it possible for me to log out again, and get my space back. I think I'll do a move of my iTunes library into a place where it's not covered by filevault...

[gsnedders]

Doesn't iTunes complain if you do that?

[liorean]

Not if you use iTunes to move it. Set a new directory to store the files in, and chose to consolidate the library.

[firepages]

...glad you got it sorted it as my fix for anything mac includes a hammer or a hot pointy stick :D

in saying that.. I got an older aqua imac .. & I keep thinking that whilst it performs as a paperweight quite nicely its a bit of a shame to limit it as such ...

any ideas ? I did try installing Darwin on it once but that came to nothing but me searching for da hammer.

[gsnedders]

Couldn't you just install OS X?