Is a "start up disk" the same thing as your hard drive? (iMac)

“Start-up disk” is the disk the computer loads the operating system from so I would imagine if you only have 1 hard drive partion then clearing out any unused programs and data would sort out your problems.

I don’t know much about the Mac OS, but in Windows even if you have a huge hard drive if you store too much at C:\ (the root directory) instead of putting it into subdirectories (folders), then Windows will run out of memory to address the “number” of files long before their “size” becomes an issue. It is a fairly huge number, but you probably have a fairly huge number of files, too.

Take a look at the file structure before you delete things. It may only be that you need to set up some folders and move things off the root.

But to answer your starting question, for most of us, most of the time, the “start up drive” is C:\. But on a computer that is set up to enable it, it could also be a D:\ (or other drive letter designator) for the CD drive (such as is required to install an OS on a new computer or hard drive, for example), and there’s no reason other than convention why you can’t still boot from a floppy at A:\ or B:\, if you wanted that for some ungodly reason, like to relive the 1980s or something.

Thanks so much to both of you. I ditched Garage Band and it took a huge chunk of space. I am also removing movies that we somehow added to the computer via Apple TV. Hopefully this will help. :)

My iMac OSX 10.6.4 (Snow Leopard OPS system) was giving me that start-up disk is nearly full message a lot. So I bought an external hard drive (called “My Book”) with 2 Tera bites of memory and transferred all of my pictures from my iMac to the My Book. I have no more memory issues.

Thanks @gondwanalon I do have a backup drive. I will use it.

Okay- I feel stupid. I never deleted the .dmg files from software installs. Gee… no wonder my drive is full. I have dupes of all my programs. :(

I bought an exterior hard drive called “My Book Studio” (2 tera bite) for my iMac. I forget exactly how much I paid for it on ebay but it was under $100. I love it as it seems to have limitless storage space (for my uses anyway). It is very easy to set up and operate.