Success!!!!
Having decided on a course of action, I attempted to migrate the contents of the SSD to the HD partition one category (settings, users files, applications) at a time. This ran into an account glitch and I had to delete and recreate the partition with another fresh install of ML. Then I used Migration Assistant to migrate all the categories to the HD at one time. The timings were then:
logo 9
spinner 16
desktop 73
Still a significant improvement in each category and suggestive for a corrupted system file.
I then tried a fresh install of ML from the HD to the SSD (I thought). When I examined the SSD, all the original non-system files were still there and I apparently just installed the new ML over the prior copy of ML already on the SSD. However, the timings were now:
logo 26
spinner 33
desktop 37
The quick time to the desktop was what I wanted out of the SSD although the times to logo and spinner had increased unexpectedly. Any comment on that?
All the software I tested was working except for a critical file for my wife - Parallels was corrupted. I was able to reinstall it along with a reinstallation of Windows 7 and her critical embroidery software that only runs on Windows. It was a full days work.
So it does appear that the original slow boot times were related to a corrupt system file that was repaired with a reinstallation of ML (either fresh or superimposed over the prior copy).
Having decided on a course of action, I attempted to migrate the contents of the SSD to the HD partition one category (settings, users files, applications) at a time. This ran into an account glitch and I had to delete and recreate the partition with another fresh install of ML. Then I used Migration Assistant to migrate all the categories to the HD at one time. The timings were then:
logo 9
spinner 16
desktop 73
Still a significant improvement in each category and suggestive for a corrupted system file.
I then tried a fresh install of ML from the HD to the SSD (I thought). When I examined the SSD, all the original non-system files were still there and I apparently just installed the new ML over the prior copy of ML already on the SSD. However, the timings were now:
logo 26
spinner 33
desktop 37
The quick time to the desktop was what I wanted out of the SSD although the times to logo and spinner had increased unexpectedly. Any comment on that?
All the software I tested was working except for a critical file for my wife - Parallels was corrupted. I was able to reinstall it along with a reinstallation of Windows 7 and her critical embroidery software that only runs on Windows. It was a full days work.
So it does appear that the original slow boot times were related to a corrupt system file that was repaired with a reinstallation of ML (either fresh or superimposed over the prior copy).
.