Preserved Topic: save index for "Macintosh HD" or no??

my boss left an imac at my house for me to work on.. its been fine until this morning when it started 'saving' the index for the HD.. so i backed off and let it do what it felt it needed to do.. then a window came up:
"The index for 'Macintosh HD' was only partially created because the disk is full. The partial index is 121 megabytes.
To delete the index, click Delete.
To save the index, click Save.

My PC does not have this function (that i now of).. i've been unable to get ahold of my boss to ask what to do about this situation.. Is it important to save? or is it okay to delete it? is the HD really full? i need to know how major a function this is.. will the system have only a partial list of the files on the machine if i save it or will it have no list if i delete it??

i'm in the middle of inputting ads for a print project :}

~velvetrose

Here's what I think is happening. Maybe smething else, but it's all I can think of.

The "find file" search engine on newer Macs, dubbed "Sherlock", has three options: to search a drive by file name, to search the internet (sort of like Google), and to search for a local file by content ("I think I said something about banannas in the letter to Mom"). In order to do the latter, the mac needs to index the content of all the files on the drive - a big undertaking. This index needs to be updated periodically to be effective. You can initiate the indexing manually, or you can have it do it automatically at preset intervals (like when you're sleeping!).

I do my index at sporadic intervals, manually when I know I won't be using it for a while, 'cause it can be time sonsuming. I'm guessing the boss had the imac set to index at whatever time it went of on you. FWIT, I just looked and my index file claims to be 113 MB, so the number you got isn't out of line.

Since this index is just for convenience, not a crucial aspect to the computer's functionality, no harm done to cancel the indexing, and he should be alerted that the hard drive is so close to full!

Hope that helped.

thank-you.. i deleted it and its working fine now
as for the disk.. i will definitely alert her!

~velvetrose