Mac OS X 10.4.11 / disk utility / erase free space: disk full • 7.12.07 - Jane is K.O.

Use OSX terminal commands mentioned below on your own risk. The sudo [temporary roots priviledges] command in Terminal means you can potentially wipe your hard disk, when mistyped.

Problem description
Initially: 32 GB space on harddisk left
Operation: “Erase free space” with disk utility [ OS X 10.4.11 ]
Problem: Process interrupted unexpectedly. Large invisible temporary file [here: 29 GB++] appears – 0! bytes space left on harddisk.

Local solution
STEP 1: Restart. Got 3 GB back. Where did another 29 GB go?
STEP 2: Find file by running this in Terminal:
sudo find / -size +10000000000c -print
Result: found file in
/.TemporaryItems/folders.0/TemporaryItems/EFTFile1.sparseimage
STEP 3: Erasing EFTFile1.sparseimage in Terminal with
sudo rm /.TemporaryItems/folders.0/TemporaryItems/EFTFile1.sparseimage

Follow-ups
The culprit file: EFTFile1.sparseimage.
Googling EFTFile1.sparseimage finds more possible locations of the temp file
/var/root/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/EFTFile1.sparseimage
~/.Trash/Recovered files/EFTFile1.sparseimage

Possible software based solution
I didn’t find any. Terminal helps.
EVEN OmniDiskSweeper 1.6 didn’t find the files in question.

Any hintful comments on this?
[Can’t provide support, this is just for your information. I am no geek nor UNIX-proof.]