[caseykiv]

I'm installing osx onto my 8gb mini9 using two usbflash drives. Before I begin installation it says i have 7.2 GB available (HD is completely erased) then i make a osx journaled version partition, which only has 6.8 gb. Then when I click continue to install (after taking out all of the printer drivers and language things and such) it says that partition actually only has 5.8gb and i need an additional 13MB TO INSTALL! :shock: AH! I've erased it and repartitioned about a billion times, what is wrong?! how did i lose all those 2 gbs of space? how do i get it back so i can install it?

[Gothmolly]

8,000,000,000 bytes = 7.45 GB. The SSD itself probably keeps some sectors aside for error correction. Formatting chews up space with metadata.

[caseykiv]

Goth, I understand the conversion factor, that's not the issue here. The install should still fit on the drive even if it is 7.45GB or 7.2GB - which is what the disk util is reporting.

When partitioned with the disk util, it gives me a partition that is 6.8gb. That again makes sense as I've been reading the journal takes up ~300mb. So we end up with 6.8gb. So great, that makes sense. I only need 5.8gb to install OSX without fonts, languages, and printer drives, so we exit out of disk utility.
However, once I'm back at the installer, and on the screen that allows you to select which drive you want to install Leopard on, my SSD reports a total capacity of 6.8gb, only 5.8gb of which are active.
It's like for some reason 1gb is just not usable. I've erased it countless times. In the disk utility on the Partition tab, the little diagram thing has a decent chunk shaded blue. Now on my other mac I've assumed that is used space. But on this... How could it be used? I JUST erased and repartitioned it! This happens every time.

[cuoreesitante]

The trick is to get a 10.5 version, not a 10.5.6 version.

I had the same problem too but with the 10.5 you only need 5.8 GB to install, where 10.5.6 needs 6.1GB.