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Start up disc is full :-( - 2009/09/10 19:55Hi, I'm new here and would appreciate your advice! I have a G4 tower and I am having trouble downloading photos from my camera. A pop up window is saying my start up disc is just about full, so do I need to upgrade the hard drive? if so, what is recommended to do... please help! Thanks!
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krowmagnum
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Posts: 948
Re:Start up disc is full :-( - 2009/09/11 14:51Several things you can do. But first make sure your trash is empty.
1. throw away whatever files are not being used to make more empty space.
2. Back up files to CD/DVD-R or external drive (hard drive or flash drive) then trash the original files on the drive.
3. Add a 2nd hard drive to your G4 for more storage. Easy to do and depending on your model G4 you can use up to 120GB drive on pre-2002 G4's and larger on 2002 and later models.
4. Replace the hard drive with a larger drive. You can clone the contents using CarbonCopy Cloner to make an exact duplicate of your drive.
You should do something pretty quick because overloading your drive can cause problems. You could loose what is on your drive in the worst case scenario from filling the drive too full. You want to have at least 10% of the drive empty for the OS to use.
I would get another ATA drive to mount internally, or a USB or Firewire external drive so you can copy the excess files to it for storage. (then trash the original files from your main drive)
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universe
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Posts: 386
Re:Start up disc is full :-( - 2009/09/11 22:19Since you are storing photographs you should note that 500GB external HD's are available. Since there are Firewire driven data can be download quickly.
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LBCD
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Re:Start up disc is full :-( - 2009/09/11 22:24thanks for replying!
There are 4 ports available inside the tower to add another hard drive, I will either take it to the mac store or try it myself.
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krowmagnum
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Re:Start up disc is full :-( - 2009/09/12 06:33Which G4 do you have ?
Most are pretty easy to install a 2nd drive in and there are many online guides to show you how to do it.
Anyone with basic mechanical skills can do this themselves in a few minutes. The important part to remember is getting the jumper setting on the new drive correct so it shows up in the Disk Utility so you can format it for the Mac.
Post edited by: krowmagnum, at: 2009/09/12 06:40
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