Disk Utility Message

Question

Level 1

13 points

Disk Utility Message

I use a late 2012 iMac running Cataina, almost 11 years old. After using it earlier today, when I tried to use it again, it was shutdown. I tried the power button but no response. Finally, on the third try, it started up, very slowly, which is not unusual at this point in its life. After startup, Safari was not running and I got the popup message that Safari had quit unexpectedly. At that point I decide to run Disk Utility First Aid. When it finished I got the message shown below.

First Aid has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume.

I take that as an indication DU thinks the HD has a problem that might cause failure. I'm surprised it lasted this long but wondering if that's what the message is telling me.

iMac 21.5″

Posted on Sep 29, 2023 3:17 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MartinR

Level 7

25,165 points

Sep 29, 2023 4:32 PM in response to dlt4

It would be an indication the HDD is having problems. If you have data you want to keep, back it up to an external drive before the internal HDD actually dies.

BTW, it's not impossible to replace the HDD in a 2012 iMac. OWC offers kits for DIY and I believe they even offer a service to do it for you. Also, if you install Catalina on an external drive you could always boot off the external even if the internal HDD is dead.

Reply

Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,373 points

Sep 30, 2023 12:57 PM in response to dlt4

Not imposiblr, but if DU reported no erros in Recovery mode I wou;dn't suspect the drive.

Start with this...

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes or more.

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

Reply

Answer 3

MartinR

Level 7

25,165 points

Oct 1, 2023 7:44 AM in response to dlt4

Well, you could do this ... get a good USB3 external drive (HDD or SSD). Install a fresh copy of Catalina on it. Then if your system works fine booting off the external drive, I would consider it conclusive that the problem is either the internal HDD or the installation of macOS on the internal HDD, not the iMac itself.

If the problems remain, then the issue is likely to be the iMac and it would be preferable to replace it. And you can always reuse the external HDD.

Reply

Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

250,373 points

Sep 30, 2023 7:25 PM in response to dlt4

Well, as MartinR pointed out the 5400 RPM drive is the slowest Drive Apple could've used I think.

If you're going to stick with it consider a faster external drive to boot fro...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/storage/external/owc-mercury-elite-pro-dual/usb-3.1

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Dual-RAID

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-drives/owc-ministack

Or a bare one with your own SSD in it...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BYSKXGJV?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Reply

Answer 5

dlt4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 29, 2023 5:41 PM in response to MartinR

Thanks for the reply.

After posting my question I did some research and decided to boot into Recovery mode and run DU. Didn’t get an error. But when I restarted the Mac it not only was going extremely slow, it got into a loop of doing restarts. In between restarts there was a brief message that said it had to restart because of a problem. It never got back to a normal state.

I think the HD is toast. It’s been doing the restarts for at least an hour now. I do have Time Machine backups and also a Super Duper clone on an external drive. Thanks for the suggestion about a new drive from OWC. Depending on what they cost, just wondering if it’s worth it on such an old Mac.

any thoughts would be appreciated.

Reply

Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,373 points

Sep 30, 2023 4:18 PM in response to dlt4

Good to hear, so far...

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Thanks for Old Toad’s etrecheck instructions…

Slow iMac 2017 - Apple Community

Use the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

Reply

Answer 7

MartinR

Level 7

25,165 points

Sep 30, 2023 5:55 PM in response to dlt4

Your 2012 iMac with 2.7 a GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 is still a decent machine. Here are its fundamental limitations today -

5400 rpm HDD. These slow HDDs have always been an underlying cause of low/poor performance. Recommend that you upgrade to a 7200RPM HDD or an SSD.
8 GB RAM. While this was ok back in the day, Catalina demands much more of the system than Mountain Lion did when this machine was released. Recommend that you upgrade to 16GB.

That said, Catalina is the final version of macOS that you can run on this iMac. That's not a problem per se, just relating the fact.

I also suggest removing Memory Clean & Clean App from your iMac. You don't need them and because they run in background all the time, they consume system resources, which decreases overall system performance.

Reply

Answer 8

BDAqua

Level 10

250,373 points

Sep 30, 2023 6:11 PM in response to dlt4

Delete these files & restart...

~/Library/LaunchAgents/ws.agile.1PasswordAgent.plist

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ecamm.printopia.plist

~ tilde indicates your user library folder

Apple hid the Users' Library folders...

Method 1:

1 From the Finder, select the Go menu at top of the screen, and choose Go to Folder.

2 In the window that opens, enter ~/Library, and click Go.

Reply

Answer 9

MartinR

Level 7

25,165 points

Oct 1, 2023 7:37 AM in response to dlt4

A decent 7200rpm HDD should be in the $40-$100 range. 16GB RAM for your iMac is about $40 (replacing the 2x4GB RAM DIMMS currently in your iMac with 2x8GB RAM DIMMS). The DIY hard drive upgrade kit from OWC is about $40. So, $120-$180 total for DIY.

Reply

Answer 10

dlt4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 30, 2023 3:12 PM in response to BDAqua

Late last night my Mac eventually got out of the restarting loop that I mentioned previously and booted up. For the last few years, especially right after waking from sleep mode or at startup, it has been slow to respond to keystrokes, opening apps, etc.,. I assumed it was due to the HD being almost 11 years old, although I have never been a heavy user.

I did boot into Safe mode. I tried opening a couple apps and performance seemed to be about the same as what it has been prior to yesterday's sudden problem. After restarting it seems to be back to where it was before the issue that happened yesterday.

You mentioned you didn't think it was the HD causing the problem. Any thoughts on what might be going on?

Thanks for your help.

Reply

Answer 11

dlt4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 30, 2023 6:15 PM in response to MartinR

I appreciate the feedback Martin.

I'm not sure what a faster HDD and 8 GB of RAM cost, but since the diagnostic report said that a major issue is kernel panics, perhaps a sign of hardware failure, perhaps I should think about getting a new Mac instead?

Reply

Answer 12

dlt4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 30, 2023 6:46 PM in response to BDAqua

Files have been deleted. I assume you suspect they could be causing problems?

I'm wondering if Safari might be part of the problem. The error report I got yesterday was because Safari had quit unexpectedly. On the restart after deleting the two files Safari is just agonizingly slow, and I only have seven tabs open.

Reply

Answer 13

dlt4 Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 1, 2023 9:18 AM in response to MartinR

Thank you for your helpful suggestions. I will give the situation some thought. I’m pretty mechanically inclined but taking the screen off the Mac makes me hesitate. But I’ll watch the videos on OWC before I decide.

Thanks again

Reply

Answer 14

Disk Utility Message

Similar questions