THANKS for all your help. You certainly are making much effort on my behalf and it is very much appreciated.

Unfortunately . . .

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1. But Apple has since dripped core storage

That makes sense since one of the earlier "core storage" commands I tried using Terminal indicated that core storage could not be found, etc. (or words to the effect);

2. and the HD as your Data drive

I would be happy to leave the SSD for the OS and the HDD separate for the DATA . . . However, the HDD cannot be used AS IS. It cannot be formatted or written to because it "cannot be written to the last block" and any attempt at formatting or erasing "fails."

My issue is trying to get the computer to use the HDD. Disk utility shows that the HDD exists, but I cannot do anything with it. DU says that the HDD is "uninitialized." Also, I get a message at startup that "something" has not been initialized on the computer and I am given the option to click on a box marked "initialize." But when I do so, nothing appears to happen . . . at least the HDD has not changed or become available for use.

Quite the riddle to me. confused

Many thanks,
MG2009