Please report back what you get from Apple Tech Support.
Hello again. I've bit the bullet and am currently talking with Apple Tech Support (based in Brisbane) about the Disk First Aid failure. Initiated by a second issue just arisen regarding a Time machine failure ("TM could not create a local snapshot to back up from").
So far on his instructions I have Shut Down, removed all connections including power cable for 10 seconds, restarted from Recovery and zapped the PRAM (all to no avail). He has referred the issues to engineers and in the meantime I'm copying via Terminal my user folder (with appropriately adjusted permissions) to an external drive in preparation for a potential hard drive erase and reinstallation. Depending on what the engineers come up with - probably Monday - this may not be necessary but at least I have another copy independent of Time Machine and the clone.
I'll report further. It occurs to me that this is no longer about MS Office which I've got rid of so should I create another thread?
cheers Andy
