mac mini running EXTREMELY slow

First, the OS X installation on the PC certainly is pirated. Every Macintosh computer ships with OS X installed. You may have paid for an upgrade to such an installation. You did not pay for, and Apple doesn't sell, an OS to run on third-party hardware. Apple would be within its rights to sue you for copyright infringement.

Your system is so heavily modified that, instead of trying to remove the modifications piecemeal, you should erase your boot volume, reinstall OS X, and then go through the initial setup process, importing only your user data and settings from backup — not applications or other files.

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with a mirroring tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Preferably both. You must be certain that you can restore everything to the state it's in now.

Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup), launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup volume with the default options.This operation will destroy all data on the volume, so you had be better be sure of your backups. Quit Disk Utility and install OS X. When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you import the data from one of your backups. For details, see here:

Setting up a new Mac from an old one

Import only "Users" and "Settings" – not "Applications" or "Other files." Don't import the Guest account, if it was enabled on the old system. After that, run Software Update. If you still have the problem, take the machine to an Apple Store or other authorized service provider for hardware testing.

If the problem is resolved after the clean installation, reinstall your third-party software selectively. I can only give general guidelines. Self-contained applications that install into the Applications folder by drag-and-drop or download from the App Store are usually safe. Anything that comes packaged as an installer or that prompts for an administrator password is suspect, and you must test thoroughly after reinstalling each such item to make sure you haven't restored the problem. Never reinstall the hacks from the pirated OS X installation.

Before installing any software, ask yourself the question, "Am I sure I know how to uninstall it without having to start this process all over again?" If the answer is "no," stop.

Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it.

Any third-party software that doesn't install by drag-and-drop into the Applications folder, and uninstall by drag-and-drop to the Trash, is a system modification.

Whenever you remove system modifications, they must be removed completely, and the only way to do that is to use the uninstallation tool, if any, provided by the developers, or to follow their instructions. If the software has been incompletely removed, you may have to re-download or even reinstall it in order to finish the job.

Here are some general guidelines. Suppose you want to remove something called “BrickYourMac.” First, consult the product's Help menu, if there is one, for instructions. Finding none there, look on the developer's website, say www.brickyourmac.com. (That may not be the actual name of the site; if necessary, search the Web for the product name.) If you don’t find anything on the website or in your search, contact the developer. While you're waiting for a response, download BrickYourMac.dmg and open it. There may be an application in there such as “Uninstall BrickYourMac.” If not, open “BrickYourMac.pkg” and look for an Uninstall button.

You may have to log out or reboot in order to complete an uninstallation.

If you can’t remove software in any other way, you’ll have to erase your boot volume and perform a clean reinstallation of OS X. Never install any third-party software unless you're sure you know how to uninstall it; otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.

Trying to remove complex system modifications by hunting for files by name often will not work and may make the problem worse. The same goes for "utilities" that purport to remove software.

OP, forget what everyone else is telling you about a "pirated" version of OS X. This has absolutely nothing to do with your original problem. These are just Apple zealots going crazy over defending Apple.

Let me give you some real advice.

1. First of all, I need you to post the following in Terminal:

sudo iotop -C 5 12

You should see a process called MDS or MDWorker eating up all of your disk I/O, correct?

This is a bug that was never fixed, nor addressed by Apple. The cause of this is a launch agent that exists in the directory /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.afpstat

This launch agent was most likely inserted into os x during the development phase of os x 1O.8.O. This launch agent points to a process that does not actually exist. It is a bug, and for reasons I don't quite understand, causes spotlight to constantly re-index itself - hogging the hard drive and slowing your computer to a crawl.

2. Drag com.apple.afpstat to the trash bin, where it belongs. You will be prompted for your password. Enter it.

This should address your problem. Additionally, this should speed up your boot time considerably. You can thank me later for this. I deleted this launch agent, and now Mountain Lion is blazingly fast!! I was so disappointed with how slow it was after upgrading from SL. Now I get all of the speed and performance that was promised with the upgrade. Cheers!

grimsrudjk,

Thank you! I am having the exact same problem. I found a file in /System/Library/LaunchAgents called com.apple.afpstat.plist. (yours didn't have the .plist, though). So, I removed it after making a renamed backup of it and trashed it. My system seems is a bit faster now, but the 'sudo iotop -C 5 12' is still showing mds and mdworker. Did I remove the wrong file? I didn't see a com.apple.afpstat file so, like I said, I removed the .plist one.

Thanks!!