Yeah your right i still have errors when running disk permissions...

I have 100s of Permissions differ on "Aplications/itune.

Waste of time that was using repair disk permissions

Good advice above but I wonder...

Since the slow down occurred did you update or upgrade Mac OS? When I updated from Lion to Mountain Lion my boot time increased loads. I basically upgraded over the top of the previous installation which I guess is what caused it. When I cleanly reinstalled Mountain Lion (having made a recovery disk (bought Mtn Lion from Appstore), my zippy boot times were back to normal.

One thing I did to get a really fast boot time was to install a hybrid hard drive, a Seagate Momentous XT. These are laptop hard drives but no reason why it shouldn't work for your iMac I don't think. It has a Solid State Disk (SSD) partition in it in which it stores commonly used code including OS and boot up stuff, and learns which things you use most often so you get a speed boost after using it a little while. If you already have an SSD installed obviously it makes no sense to get the hybrid drive.

If you don't wanna mess with things too much then a clean install is probably the best solution. I don't know but can the Time Machine back up thing slow down booting? Maybe disconnect it and see? Have as little connected as possible too (if applicable) just to time the start up. Use your stopwatch phone app mate.



If you've got the space for a larger 3.5" (desktop size) drive, you could maybe go for this one which I just discovered this second.

Edited by deleted (Sat 28-Sep-13 02:27:52)

In reply to a post by time2die:

Waste of time that was using repair disk permissions

It usually is

To be fair to Apple, the First Aid tab does say "If you have a permissions problem ... click Repair Permissions.", the obvious corollary being that if you don't then don't bother!

But it's sloppy coding imo.

Thanks for that Dr Spook you have now confused me even more and this Imac is about to go out of the office window.........I need a degree in PC computer studies to understand all that.....

Yeah, just chuck it out the window. I will be waiting outside to catch and run* off with it!!

If I was living nextdoor I'd pop round and sort it out for ya. I think your best bet is to do a clean install of the OS but check those guides about disabling some of them start up programs you've got running, you know, like the giant magnifying glass one and OAP checker.

*Well, walk very quickly away! Maybe run round the corner first if I'm feeling up to the challenge.

And won't i lose all my installed programs if i do that.

If you've got a Time Machine backup (and if you haven't, why not? ) the Migration Assistant will put your apps and data back.

Yeah I got a time machine back up but I'm not exactly comfortable using it.need to look at the many IMac books I have a get some clear instructions,just out of interest where do I actually find the option to do a clean install .

Just been lazy as I have not looked myself at this moment in time and I would hate to have to start all over again putting all the programs I have bought and downloaded,all my music,all my films,all my photos.....knowing me I would completly [censored] it up Bigtime

In reply to a post by billford:

If you've got a Time Machine backup (and if you haven't, why not? ) the Migration Assistant will put your apps and data back.

Everybody has a time machine with these systems,only you need a external hardrive for them to function,I have WD Mybook Live,pretty simple once you get your head around it but I have to download certain music/ vids to the Mac Drive because this Nass system don't like me doing it directly to that and I get Errors with the program Transmission.

So when I have the file I login to the Nass and copy files from the Mac to the film/ music folder on the Nass system and then do a re/ scan.....

Probably something else I haven't configured correctly but I get by.

In reply to a post by time2die:

just out of interest where do I actually find the option to do a clean install.

That's a good question... prior to Lion you just rebooted from the installation DVD and followed the instructions- it would detect a connected TM backup and offer to re-install your apps and data.

With 10.8 you may have to download the installer from the App store and go from there, I'm not sure if it gives the option of a clean install (ie wiping the disk) or not.

I don't think it does, so in that case you'll need to make your own bootable DVD/memory stick- have a look here for how to do it. Note that it won't fit on a single-layer DVD.

Migration Assistant will restore anything on the OS X HDD that you haven't explicitly excluded in Time Machine- anything on the NAS is your problem

But if it's the iTunes library then that should be OK I think- all the files keeping track of what is where in the library are stored on whichever drive iTunes itself is on.

Edited by billford (Sun 29-Sep-13 16:08:37)