Tbird will not accept password

[Steamer Dave]

The icon for the internal drive has never been a problem. It was the mini drive, as the system calls it, that had me concerned as it contains all of my backups.

When I bring up finder it shows a number of folders, one of which is Utilities. When I try to bring up Utilities it is empty.

I have never tried to use Disk Utility.

I have not kept track of the various versions of the OS that have come and gone. When notified of a new version I dutifully accept it.

I downloaded Onyx and brought it up. I looked at the options and checked them out. I did not run any of them as I am leery of mucking around with the system.

What does Rum Permissions do?

What does Rebuilding rebuild?

I will do another backup tomorrow and will try some of the Maintenance options. Maybe it will clear out some junk and let the system run faster.

Dave

 

[honestone]

OK, first, the name of the mini drive is not a name the system assigns to it. For such external drives, they usually have a name already. You can modify that name anytime you want.

The Utilities folder is inside of the Applications folder. Unless "someone" created a folder entitled "Utilities", and at either a "higher" level, or an "equivalent" level as the Applications, Users, Documents, etc. folders, the Finder itself would not show a folder entitled "Utilities". So, you need to go to the Applications folder first, then you should see the Utilities folder. Inside that folder are a number of Applications, including Disk Utility. I assume you know how to first navigate to the Applications Folder on your internal drive.

I'm guessing that Finder option I mentioned previously has those options turned on for displaying the icons of all your drives on the desktop. But, you need to make sure. For the so-called mini external drive, if the option is checked in that Finder menu, but it sometimes does not show up on the desktop, then it could be an issue with the port on the iMac the drive is connected to, the port on the drive to which the cable is connected to, or both, or the drive mechanism itself inside the external case is going bad. You really need to check that out, and if you can get Disk Utility going, you can use to to check out and/or repair that drive.

For the OS updates, sometimes just doing an update, say from Yosemite (OS 10.10.5) to El Capitan (OS 10.11) might not be as "smooth" as one expects. In actuality, when when does such a major upgrade, it is prudent to do some preliminary disk cleanup/maintenance tasks first. In some cases, it could be better to actually first Erase and Format the internal drive, then do a clean, "virgin" installation of the new OS. Being that you are doing Time Machine backups (good for you), that is something you could have done, or actually could do now (after you make that next backup). That would take some time and effort, but it could be worth it.

For Onyx, none of those routines will hurt your system. For Repairing permissions, there are "some" system follows whose permissions get "mucked up" every now and then, and the Repair Permissions will fix them for you. I suspect you have never done that, so that is why you'll need to run it at least twice. For the Rebuild option, when you click on that, it actually says what kind of files will be rebuilt. Again, those can get "mucked up" also.

In any event, the first task is to see if you can find and run Disk Utility. Next, you'll need to work on the icon "issue" for the external drive. And, of course, as you said, you'll run another backup.

 

[Steamer Dave]

When I use finder or open the applications folder there are only two entries, APP cleaner and Utilities. When I open Utilities nothing comes up.
When I open the applications folder on the desktop and open Utilities i find Disk Utilities. But, it is an old version that will not start.
I did a search for Disk Utility and found a current version. I ran it and selected the First Aid option. I checked the details and there were no changes, just a list of things checked.
The only options are, First Aid, Partitions, Erase, Unmount, Info.

I am very leery of doing an Erase and format of the Macintosh HD! Better the devil you know than unknown. I do not have confidence that all of the other software and drivers I have downloaded over the years have been saved. I expect that the data, photos, emails, drawings etc have been saved. I hope!

What are Permissions?

The Icon for the backup drive is fine with me as G-Drive Mini

Dave

 

[honestone]

It sounds like the Finder is somehow "corrupted"/hosed. That could have happened assuming you did very little (if any) disk maintenance, and thus OS upgrades could have been problematic. And, it is really strange that via the Go menu in the Finder, you see nothing in the Applications folder. What about the other folders that you can choose from the Go menu?

I guess another possibility is that the internal drive is "dying". When did you have it replaced, and do you know the kind of drive Apple put inside? Hopefully, it was a 7200 rpm drive. If its RPM speed is 5400 rpm, that could be an additional reason why things are running slow (or slower).

It is also real, real bizarre that when opening the Applications folder on the desktop, you only see the one app and the Utilities folder. And inside that Utilities folder, the version of Disk Utility there will not run. Are there any other apps inside that Utilities folder? Also, when you double click on the icon for the internal drive, what folders besides Applications does it show? Those should be, at least, Documents, System, Users, and Library (I have another one called TechTool Protection, as I have the excellent third party disk maintenance program TechTool Pro installed).

Also, I assume you run other applications on your machine. What are those, and where are they?

Regarding the "correct" version of Disk Utility that you found, where is it? I suspect it is somewhere on your primary partition, and when you run it, it cannot do any repairs on that internal drive.

I truly wonder if the directory structure of your internal drive is "hosed", and that it needs to be repaired. You do have backups, but as for "historical" stuff, I of course do not know about that.

There should be a hidden Recovery HD partition on your internal drive. This link describes how to boot to that partition, and what you can do from it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

As you can see, you can run Disk Utility from there to do any repairs, etc. That could also reveal how good/bad the drive is.

This link contains an explanation of what Permissions are:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1052220/software-utilities/repairpermissions.html

Finally, there is the possibility that you could need a more robust disk maintenance/repair program than Disk Utility, like TechTool Pro or Disk Warrior. In fact, given all the issues you are having (along with the lack of drive maintenance), it might have to be Disk Warrior.

 

[Steamer Dave]

Thanks much for your advise and help Things are stable now and I think I will leave well enough alone. Will also do more disk monitoring/maintenance.

Dave

 

[honestone]

Thanks much for your advise and help Things are stable now and I think I will leave well enough alone. Will also do more disk monitoring/maintenance.

Dave

It would be helpful if you can let us know what exactly you did to get the issue resolved.