Is my iMac dying? Help please!

[Xairbusdriver]

Good idea. One of the best user convenience changes in macOS 10.13 High Sierra (this was probably available in macOS 10.12 Sierra or even earlier) is the space allocation on our connected drives with the Apple menu->About this mac... The resulting window has six tabs, one of which is "Storage". That section displays space used/free on all connected drives. But it breaks down the types of files on the internal drive. You can hover the mouse over each colored section and see the space used as well as the type on the segments that are too small for a label.

Why do I have over 5.5GB of "iOS" files on my Mac?! And almost 21GB in iTunes?! The only thing I use that app for is to backup the iDevices! I can remember listening to any of the music there! Now that I have only a ~500GB SSD internal, even 25GB makes a difference!

Never used that About my Mac... much! It can even show the Last Accessed date of stuff in iTunes. Would you believe my most current use of an item was 2/13/2015?! And I don't even recognize the 'song' or the performer! I think one of my Grand Daughters must have used my Mac... There are some MIT lectures from 2013 (~.5GB) that can certainly go! Plus, you can remove stuff right in the little window listing the iTunes items.

[Sooz]

Thanks for the suggestion about how to check my storage... looks good, here's a screen shot.

My NEW problem is that when I start to follow Jon's directions about using Disk Warrior  (I clicked Restart and as soon as I heard the chime, I pressed down on the OPTION key until I saw the start up disks icons, then released the key). 

I see my HD icon and an icon labeled "Recovery"  as well as seeing a network option... my SD icon is labeled "Super Duper iMac backup" but I don't see that anywhere so I'm guessing the icon with the word "recovery" means SD?

Anyway, at this point, I am UNABLE to control my mouse -- I could only move the mouse up and down, not sideways, and couldn't even get close to selecting anything.

Suggestions will be much appreciated!  Thanks!!!!!!
Sooz

[jchuzi]

Recovery is not the same as your SD backup. It refers to the Recovery partition, which allows you to painlessly reinstall the operating system if that is necessary. Instead of sending you a DVD with the OS on it, Apple has you access the OS via the Internet, which the Recovery partition allows you to do. It will let you download and reinstall the entire system.

My guess is that your SD disk, for whatever reason, is not bootable, although it should be. I had the same problem with SD in El Capitan and David Nanien (the developer of SD) never did solve it. SD has been working fine in subsequent OS's, however.

When I switched to Carbon Copy Cloner, everything was fine. I suggest that you erase the SD disk and redo it from scratch. To do this, launch SD and click the Options tab. Then, click the During Copy arrows and choose the option to Erase Clone Then Copy Files From MacIntosh HD. This takes much longer than an incremental clone, so go have a cup of coffee or other beverage of your choice.

This should give you a pristine clone that, hopefully, will work as it should.

As to the mouse issue, sometimes unplugging it and plugging it in again solves problems. Of course, if you have a wireless mouse, that won't work.

[Xairbusdriver]

At least we know Sooz has plenty of free space.

BTW, what mouse are you using? Is it the Apple one with a very small roller ball on the top? Those were/are notorious for collecting dust that clogs up the switches that cause different cursor directions. If you have another mouse around, even an old one, you might try swapping it for the malfunctioning one and see if it works in all directions.

Can anyone still using SuperDuper (and El Capitan) verify the settings to be sure it will create a bootable backup? I remember it having quite a few settings and most did not create clones, but I haven't used it for several years so my memories are unreliable!

[Sooz]

I do have Carbon Copy Cloner, but it's from 2013. When I double click on it, I get a pop up window that says "This version of CCC has not been thoroughly qualified against this release of OS X. Please visit http://www.bombich.com for news on updates to CCC."  I guess I need to get CCC again... looks like this will be happening next week unless I can get to it over the weekend.

I don't have a mouse with a ball. I have a Macally mouse with a little red light (laser mouse??).

Thanks, everyone!!!!!

[jchuzi]

I think that Jim was referring to the scroll ball on top of the Apple mouse (in wired versions). All current Apple mice lack a track ball, relying on a laser instead.

Here's a possibility: Change the surface that the mouse is on. In my experience, a textured surface works best.

[Xairbusdriver]

Question: Do the USB external drives show up in System Prefs->Startup Disk? If it does, you can use that to force the Startup on that drive. The button may say "Restart...", but that will still be fine for getting to the point where you can use Disk Warrior. Just use System Prefs->Startup Disk again to set the internal drive to the desired Startup drive, after you've let DW do its work.

Opinion #1: If you can get a free update of CCC, I would recommend doing it. If not, just make sure SD is set up to make a clone. There should be* the word "clone" or "bootable" somewhere in the descriptions.

Opinion #2: As for the mouse problems, a textured "surface" can also be just a high resolution image of almost anything other than a solid color. The more detailed the image the better the laser can 'see' it 'moving'.

* "should be" = The two most over-used words in the English language and almost always used together!

[jchuzi]

Do you have a flash drive with DW on it? That's how I got mine. If so, it might be bootable. Insert it into a USB port and then use the Option trick at startup to see if it can be done. If that works, restart normally after running DW.

Upon normal restart, the DW icon should appear on the desktop, provided that you opted to show external disks on the desktop under Finder > Preferences > General. You must eject the DW flash drive before unplugging it. Select it and then go to File > Eject. You may unplug it after the icon disappears from the desktop.

[Sooz]

Jon, I do indeed have DW on a flash drive.    I'll get on that today!

Jim, my mousepad is a detailed image of a swirly rainbow-ish thing I got from Amazon.

Thanks for all the handholding and step-by-step stuff. I know I lack confidence in this area!

Smiles,
Sooz

[Sooz]

Hells bells! I'm about ready to dose myself with chocolate!!!
What am I doing wrong?

I shut down my iMac.

I put DiskWarrior in a USB port, then at the first (re-start) chime, I held down Opt+Cmd+P+R until I heard the second chime. My desktop, incl TM Ext HD Backup icon and SD iMac backup icon, showed up along with DW icon and DW recovery icon (partition?).

I clicked on SuperDuper to select it, and pressed Return.
This did nothing but open SD--it was supposed to start up my iMac, right?
I think maybe I missed doing something?

Then, what the heck, I found DW on SuperDuper and logged in to run DW on my HD.
I took a screenshot of these that told me I can't run DW on my HD:
Choose disk then click to rebuild (see screenshot)
and then when I clicked on HD, I got this (see screenshot)

What did I do wrong? What did I miss?  I know I must have missed something, or misunderstood something!

[Xairbusdriver]

First, stop and relax, eat/drink something chocolate and get a good nights rest.

Second, re-read the four start up methods. Maybe even write them down on four separate sheets of paper or index cards. They are four different methods, not four keystroke combos for a single startup. The method using the P and R keys are to do one thing only; they reset some of the settings that are checked during a start up. They are not a method for selecting different start up disks. They have nothing to do with having a DW thumb drive in a USB port or even running that app.

You can do this. See you tomorrow.

[Sooz]

Ok, Jim, I had me some mighty fine chocolate and a good night's sleep.  I'm trying again.
Here's what's happening...

I restarted my computer and as soon as I heard the chime, I pressed and held the Option key... Same problem as before, only Mac HD icon and Recovery Icon and Choose Network showed up along with a mouse that would only go up and down.  I changed out the surface for the mouse to four different surfaces, and it didn't make a bit of difference.

Okay, so then I just did a Restart, waited until my desktop loaded, double clicked my SuperDuper icon, selected Disk Warrior and double clicked that to launch.

That opened up and again, same as the pix I posted before with the same message: Directory cannot be rebuilt because this is the setup disk.

Okaaaay, so then, across the top menu bar, I selected "Files" and took a screenshot...and then I selected Hardware and took a screen shot.

Am I supposed to click on START?
Or, when I click on Hardware, and I see APPLE HDD ST1000LM024, and Manual Diagnostics, am I supposed to click on TEST DEVICE?

It's clear I am pretty dense about these things, and I thank you, as always, for your patience. You good folks never make me feel stoopid (I do that all by myself!  )

[Xairbusdriver]

OK. One thing at a time: The first few lines of your post:

I restarted my computer and as soon as I heard the chime, I pressed and held the Option key

That's fine, but you don't really have to wait on the chime.

...only Mac HD icon and Recovery Icon and Choose Network showed up...

Fine, that's all the Option key down on Start up does: It show you the disks that you can use for booting (starting) your computer.
This is step #4 back on post #1 of this thread. The reason to perform this method is in the very next sentence: "That last method is important if you want to try to use DW."

However, you did not mention in your post #26 is whether or not you had the DW thumbdrive inserted or not.

• If you did, we now know that you cannot run DW from that thumbdrive.
• If you did not, we haven't really learned everything we need to know.

Awaiting your reply to whether or not the DW thumbdrive was inserted before this Option key Start up was done.

[Xairbusdriver]

I would highly recommend you get a new mouse. No matter what improvements or corrections you make on your software, none of it will fix a broken mouse.

[Sooz]

Ok, Jim, here's what I did...just now:
1. Shutdown Computer
2. Inserted DW into USB port
3. Pressed Power button and held down Option key
4. HD, Recovery, and DW Recovery appeared on my desktop (along with that network button)
5. Mouse didn't go left or right, only up and down, but I got a scathingly brilliant idea that I could use the left and right arrows, so I did, and selected DW Recovery icon.
6. That made my entire screen go white, except for the apple logo in the middle. I kept it like this for 5 minutes to see if anything would happen. Nothing happened.
7. I had to do what I call a hard reset, in order to get back to my regular desktop, which I did (I prayed, too!)

To answer your question, I really don't remember -- way back in Post # 26--whether or not I had the DW thumb drive inserted or not. 

What am I doing?
Which way is UP?
If it's Tuesday, is this Belgium?

Here is what I got on my desktop after it finished loading (it showed DW was in the USB port...then I dragged the icons to the Trash, waited until they "washed out" and then I removed the thumb drive with DW on it).

Why is this so difficult for me?      (that was rhetorical)