Hi, An addition to chris B's explanation, as the root user, in any MacOS version, you are able to manipulate and/or modify permissions on any active files. This, in itself, is scary and one of the reasons why you need to be very cautious when doing anything as the root user or even enabling the root user. So, repairing permissions does not require a Recovery Partition nor a separate startup volume, you just may be limited in what gets repaired. In 95% of the cases that something needs repaired, it can be done while still logged in to the running system.
Later... Tim Kilburn Fort McMurray, AB Canada On Sep 2, 2015, at 08:53, 'Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries <[email protected]> wrote: If the OS is up and running you can run disk utility and do a disk permission repair on the running system. Not sure if it is able to fix as many things as when booted from another system but you do have the option. You can't do a disk repair on the currently running system. CB On 9/2/15 10:32 AM, Christopher-Mark Gilland wrote: > Guys, > > Hopefully one of you all can explain this to me. > > First off, I'm not saying anyone is being untruthful. It's very very! likely > that I may just not be understanding things entirely. I don't clame to be > perfect. > > I have a friend who will be left unnamed who has a mac system running > Snowleopard. NO, it's not the guy on this list ironically. Anyway, they had > to recently repair disk permissions on their main internal Macintosh HD. > They can't upgrade to Yosemite, as their system won't support it. Anyway, > they have misplaced the Snowleopard DVD which came with their system. > Further, they don't have any other bootable partition internally nor > externally. So here lies my question. > > How in the world were they able without the SL DVD media or another bootable > partition to repair permissions on their main primary macintosh HD volume? > > Here's the thing. From what I remember, correct me if I'm wrong, Snowleopard > didn't have a recovery partition, did it? Normally, after Lion and higher, > you could just boot, and hold down command+R to go to recovery. From here, > you could run Disk Utility, and repair permissions. That's not going to work > though in SL, as there's no recovery that I recall, hince why you got a > physical DVD back in the days. > > You can't exactly repair permissions though while booted into the OS though, > as certain files and folders will be in use, and the volume will be locked, > therefore not allowing a repair to be done. So, with no media, and no > external bootable partition, and no recovery partition, how in the world is > he/she doing this? Either something's not adding up here, or I'm just > thoroughly confused, and my guess is, probably the ladder. Just curious what > on earth I'm missing here. Enlighten me. > > Chris. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries > <http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries <http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
