Mountain Lion to El Capitan BAD DREAM

You haven't shown us the "Arrangement" tab in the Display preferences. If you have the "Mirror Displays" option checked, I think this is what you get.

 

Move your displays, in the Arrangement tab, so that the displays are NOT side-by-side.
For example, move the display on the right part way down, so only half of the screen is adjacent. (This is a test, to see what happens to the top menu on that screen.)
It would also be nice to see screen shots of the full screen image on each display, and not just the top right and top left corners, respectively. (Unless those ARE full screen shots already) In THAT case, I would suspect that you have some strange setup in your System Preferences/Mission Control pref pane. It may just be an odd left-over from the Mountain Lion system, such as some screen setup setting that is being mis-read by the new system install.

Try this: Mission Control pref pane, un-check "Displays have separate spaces". You will need to restart your Mac after you make that change. That may reset the strange screens that you are seeing now.

 

Nothing is messed up. El Capitan changed how multiple displays work. Each display has a menu bar to make it easier to use, and the dock appears on either display when you move the cursor over it which again means it’s closer when you need it. When you use the Display preference pane, it opens a window on each display so you can adjust settings pertinent to that display. The desktop is a combination of the entire display space, which is why you only see one of each icon. It’s all normal. See https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/move-dock-another-monitor-mac-os-x/

 

Yep. Everything is as it should be.

I was reading your description trying to see where you got into describing a problem. But you never got to the problem part.

So yeah, it is the way it should be. The other poster is correct.

 

System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Uncheck "Displays have separate Spaces" and restart the computer.

 

It's a good thing chabig got to you before the "do a clean install... clean install fixes everything" guys could respond to this thread.

 

Yeah... there’s too many of those.

Not everything requires a fresh start.

 

So true.
And who has the time for that besides tinkerers…
Some of us just "want it to work".

 

Exactly

 

Yeah my el cap imac with external monitor is same as OP described.

This is only mac i dual monitor on so nothing to compare it with.

Apple dual monitor so much easier set up than windows, although ten has now got auto set up.

I know friends who fix for most problems is wipe and reinstall on windows!
Sometimes the engineers button fixes a lot, just turn it off then back on.

 

There is a local shop. They do a reinstall of the system on every machine. Take it in for a bad video card... you’ll get it back wiped clean, and a charge for their “OEM” Windows DVD because you didn’t supply them with factory restore discs (because wiping your drive erased your recovery partition).

Doesn’t matter what the problem is. They will do a full wipe and install. All data gone.

I stop in once in a while to talk with them. And I listen to what they tell customers while I browse.

I hear a lot of false information.

Got this message on the screen. Yep that’s a virus. I’m like ummm... that’s a pop up window. Don’t worry about it. Computer is fine.

Oh... you can’t upgrade this system with a faster CPU. Ummm. Yes you can. It’ll take up to this.

I’ve talked with them about some of the projects I’ve done. And they are like you can do that??? Yep.

I had them pick up a machine I had seen in the corner. Had them open it up. Said tell me what you see in there.

They Couldn’t tell me anything about the computer. So I prompted them. What CPU does it have? They said we haven’t turn it on yet.

I said how much memory does it have. Same answer.

What video card. Same answer.

What year was it made? Same answer.

What version of Windows can it run? Same answer. Haven’t tried.

Right on down the line.

I showed them where the chipset was. What it’s revision was. It’s Intel. Now you know one detail. Look at the chips. Those are Xeons. Now this is their speed. They’re quad cores.

That’s an NVIDIA card. Here’s the model number.

And look at the memory chips. See these numbers??? This is how you translate it. It’s got 16 GB.

And it will run Windows 10 Pro 64-BIT and Windows Server 2016 will run on it too.

Now... why don’t you hit the power button and see if I’m right.

I snag stuff out of there periodically when they don’t know what it is.

Oh... yeah... it’s dead??? What you gonna do with it???? Yeah... shame to see it trashed. Yep... I can take it off your hands.

Get home... hmmm... dead??? Naw... works fine. Just have to know what it’s used for.

Computer shops are some of the stupidest people. They only sound intelligent until someone knows what their talking about.

For the record, I have been a service tech. I have repaired things that “were unrepairable”. Most of the time the repair took 30 seconds, and most of the time I didn’t charge for it.

But when I step into someone else’s shop, I’m really good at sounding like I don’t know anything. I just talk. Browse. Ask questions. And then when they think they’ve got me, I ask a really intelligent question. And I wait while the wheels spin.

After they stammer a bit, I’ll lead them down the path. And then let them process what just happened.

I’ve made friends with some that are honest. And I’ve “educated” the ones who talk above their knowledge level.

Now I have a circuit design background. I have a programming background. I have a huge computer and electronics history.

I know something and a lot in every category. But I don’t know everything. It’s interesting to talk to the techs who can’t admit that.

 

Yeah one local computer shop here is run by a retired geography teacher!

He sells used parts as new in builds!
He openly sells counterfeit software, windows, MS office.....

He is cheaper than us and we seen a few of his machines in for repair.
failed gpu or psu is most common fault, because he fits used parts and charges for new!

although of late I'm not proud of my place of work either.
We had to move and as such lost 80% of passing trade.

The boss has been using practices me and the engineer do not agree with to try get more money in door or from those customers who do come in.

It has given the company a bad name
which is shame as our engineer is an excellent engineer.

I work sales and do not have the engineering background he does.

I can sell you what you need and he can fix it once you break it!

 

Funny you bring that up because I had some experiences being the service agent of last resort for some associates when their hard drives crashed. They take it in and are told they're hosed and someone tells them to bring it to me. One person even got refused by a supposed data recovery service who looked at it and said they couldn't work on it. I recovered the drives in all cases.

I was shocked that a data recovery business couldn't manage to skim the data off of a glitchy hard drive. It took me several tries and it took all weekend to run the job, but I recovered their data.

 

We use a linux machine that is set NOT no auto mount drives for data recovery.

We too have had drives going for weeks retrying until it gets it back.

we are 90% successful in recovery.

 

Yeah. Unscrupulous business tactics catch up to you.

I tend to value my reputation higher than my pocketbook. And I have a history of telling bosses where to shove it. Usually 50/50 results between me walking out the door, or getting a promotion.

I won’t compromise my values for the sake of my boss. And I will and have told my customers when my boss is full of s$/+. Lol. Which usually results in me being temporarily fired until the clients revolt and fire the company, which brings me back to calm the customers.

Of course speaking of my younger years lol. Haven’t had occasion in a long time. But I still would.

I’m actually arguing nearly the opposite side of this in another thread. But it really isn’t in conflict. Lol

If your boss wants to survive long term, the way to steer customers to your new location is to show them a value they can’t get with your competitors.

And education.

For example, in one shop I ran years ago. I didn’t accuse any of my competitors of doing anything wrong. But I provided educational materials and handouts with every receipt that discussed how to make sure you only had legitimate software.

Ahhh.... education. Not accusations. See...

--- Post Merged, May 23, 2018 ---

A real data recovery company is beyond the scope of consumers. We’re not paying $10,000 to $100,000 for a hard drive to be dissected in a clean room environment (think 0 molecules of contaminants in the air) by people wearing special suits and analyzing the surface of the platters for literal bits of charge and no charge in stacked columns of polarity.

So... I’m going to assume that the person took it to a business that sells a service of attempting a software recovery. And that their method didn’t work. Which isn’t surprising.

If the drive will mount, then persistence of trying operating systems that can read the target file system without writing to it, is key.

If the file system is damaged, I have performed manual repairs with a hex editor. That’s when I’ve already determined it’s almost a guaranteed loss anyway. Sometimes I’ve been successful at restoring the file system that way.

Most times, persistence until something clicks on its own, and works just long enough to perform a copy is all that needs done.

Sometimes it’s just that moment of hey the stars aligned and I’ve got 5 minutes to grab the most important stuff until the moon shifts.