I am less worried about the graphical services noise on startup Vs the slowness in access files on the local drive.
From the sounds of it, it does sound like the HD is having problems. At this point I think you’ll need to create an external boot drive so you can boot up under it and then use Disk Utilities from it to test the drive as well as fix any issues present. But before you do that you may want to make a backup of the drives files if you can and hopefully that has already happened so you don’t need to struggle with the slow drive issue you are now facing.
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Assuming your friend made a good effort to keep his system updated here is how to make a OS installer drive: [https://www.macworld.com/article/3092900/macs/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-sierra-installer-drive.html|How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive] Hopefully this is the correct release he has on his system, it’s the best one given the systems age. Once you have created it use it to boot up the system by holding the '''Option''' (⌥) key it will allow you to control which drive to boot up from. We don’t want to install the OS here we just want to get to the menu to launch Disk Utility to test the internal drive.
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Assuming your friend made a good effort to keep his system updated here is how to make a OS installer drive: [https://www.macworld.com/article/3092900/macs/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-sierra-installer-drive.html|How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive] Hopefully this is the correct release he has on his system, it’s the best one given the systems age.
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Once you have created it use it to boot up the system by holding the '''Option''' (⌥) key it will allow you to control which drive to boot up from. We don’t want to install the OS here we just want to get to the menu to launch Disk Utility to test the internal drive.
I am less worried about the graphical services noise on startup Vs the slowness in access files on the local drive.
From the sounds of it, it does sound like the HD is having problems. At this point I think you’ll need to create an external boot drive so you can boot up under it and then use Disk Utilities from it to test the drive as well as fix any issues present. But before you do that you may want to make a backup of the drives files if you can and hopefully that has already happened so you don’t need to struggle with the slow drive issue you are now facing.
Assuming your friend made a good effort to keep his system updated here is how to make a OS installer drive: [https://www.macworld.com/article/3092900/macs/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-sierra-installer-drive.html|How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive] Hopefully this is the correct release he has on his system, it’s the best one given the systems age. Once you have created it use it to boot up the system by holding the '''Option''' (⌥) key it will allow you to control which drive to boot up from. We don’t want to install the OS here we just want to get to the menu to launch Disk Utility to test the internal drive.
Let us know what you find out!
Reference: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255|Mac startup key combinations]