Hidden files after Big Sur downgrade

[Andre76]

I had to downgrade back to Catalina from Big Sur. I formatted my HD and installed Catalina from a bootable flash drive. After installation I only had about 20 GB of free space on my HD, more than 200 GB was taken up as hidden 'other' files. I tried formatting the HD again and installing Catalina again, same problem, only now I only have 9 GB left...I have tried all the usual ways to find/delete these hidden files to no avail, including scripts in Terminal, various disk sweeping apps, etc.

 

[dsemf]

I had to downgrade back to Catalina from Big Sur. I formatted my HD and installed Catalina from a bootable flash drive. After installation I only had about 20 GB of free space on my HD, more than 200 GB was taken up as hidden 'other' files. I tried formatting the HD again and installing Catalina again, same problem, only now I only have 9 GB left...I have tried all the usual ways to find/delete these hidden files to no avail, including scripts in Terminal, various disk sweeping apps, etc.

It sounds like you formatted a volume and not the disk drive. Set the View option in the upper left corner to Show All Devices.

DS