Disk Utility: repair permissions question

[TRI]

I just bought a very beat up 2.4GHz MacBook Pro 4GB RAM (mid 2010) for $100. The screen is cracked (glass only), the trackpad wonky, missing 6 keys and looks like it was used for batting practice but still runs fine. I'll be using it for Photoshop with an external monitor, mouse and keyboard... sort of a poor man's mac mini. I hope the Apple DVI to ADC adapter works with the adapter I have on order.

I installed Snow Leopard and did the erase everything 5 (or was it 7?) times security option before installing, then did the software updates, and also installed the old PPC version of Photoshop CS I use.

It runs fine now except: I booted from the Snow Leopard install DVD and ran Disk Utility and did the repair disk. Then, for the heck of it, decided to run "repair permissions" and there were tons, well maybe 70, of permissions that needed repair. When the repairs were completed I ran "repair permissions" again, and once again, there were another 70 permissions that were "repaired". I've done that maybe 10 times and it always repairs tons.

I've had times before where it took 3 or 4 times to get to the point where no permissions were in need of repair, but this is crazy.

It makes me wonder if I should reinstall everything from the start but that takes a lot of hours.

Any ideas what's up with this?

Also, in Disk Utilities, in the left column where it lists your hard drives, each one has the manufacturer's name, like "189.9 GB Maxtor 6Y200P0", and under that and slightly to the right, the name you gave it. It looks like just a header and it seems to work if you choose either, but is it preferable to choose one over the other?

Thanks

 

[pm-r]

I guess you're going to call that MB Pro "Lucky" from your description.

And BTW, even a 3x secure erase is normally overkill, and with OS X SL 10.6.8, you'll be lucky to get your permission repairs down to a small number, or with any later OS X version will they ever be down close to zero for normal users. Don't worry about them too much.

And you don't need to run Disk Utility using the OS X install disk:
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature - Apple Support

The disk or manufacturer's name is the name of the drive and the name(s) below are just the formatted or partitioned volume names. You can choose either with just a single volume and they're the same thing as far as Disk Utility is concerned.

 

[harryb2448]

Have a read of this and do not worry about the repair messages:-


Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore - Apple Support

 

[pm-r]

Have a read of this and do not worry about the repair messages:-


Mac OS X: Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions messages that you can safely ignore - Apple Support

That list seems to keep growing and is now quite long with its latest update: Last Modified: Feb 13, 2015 Makes one wonder a bit as to why….

 

[bobtomay]

It's been quite long for years... at least 7-8 years that I am aware of.

This one really boggles the mind as to why Apple updates this utility to tell it not to repair new changes to the OS instead of updating the utility to recognize the new changes.

(They are either updating it or the utility is coded not to repair permissions of any updates put out by Apple.)

 

[TRI]

Thanks everybody for your responses.

Yes pm-r, it does sound like the sad Lucky the Dog Story

It's good to know that I don't need to worry about permissions not being 100% repairable.

I'm doing a Photoshop project that has been going on for several months. I save my work, .psd files, every 15 minutes or so. Every few hours I'll copy the last few .psd files to a flash drive also to a second hard drive. Every few weeks I burn CD's of my progress and put them in a fire safe. I'm trying to cover my ***!

About every 7 - 10 days, I'd boot from the Apple install disk, and run Disk Utility's repair permissions and repair disk. I now realize that repair permissions is better done from the computer's main hard drive.

Do I need to run Disk Utility as a preventive measure or is it just paranoid thinking based on nothing?

 

[harryb2448]

Every month or two does me for Repair Permissions and Repair Disk when there is a problem, like every three or four years! Consider dowloading a little utility called ACLr8 if the repair issues are a bother, or simply unclick show details.


ACLr8 for Mac | MacUpdate

 

[pm-r]

Thanks for the heads up on ACLr8, and I didn't realize it was so out in the public so well now and I had just been using the old Version 1.3 since it was released Oct. '11.

I also found that ONYX also seemed to have fixed some surplus DU permissions. But the correct version MUST be used with the proper OS X version.

 

[TRI]

Thanks Harry.

I'll probably just ignore the permission errors. The problem with adding on anything like the the ACLr8 program is that the next time something screws up I won't know if was due to that.

 

[pm-r]

Thanks Harry.

I'll probably just ignore the permission errors. The problem with adding on anything like the the ACLr8 program is that the next time something screws up I won't know if was due to that.

Just for your record, ACLr8 would just sit on your drive and won't do anything until it's opened and run, and even then it requires an Admin password to do anything.

It's basically just a harmless Python script that removes the "ACL Found..." Disk Utility permissions listings that can be quite large on some Macs and makes the list easier to read.

Or, you can just ignore them and don't worry until you come across something goofy happening on your Mac. Then maybe, then run DU to do its Repair and Verify.

 

[TRI]

Thanks.

I think I will just not run Disk Utility unless there's some sort of problem, I won't bother doing it as any sort of preventative routine.

I appreciate the help