Permissions buttons greyed out in disk utility

In the disk utility, the "verify permissions" and "repair permissions" buttons are greyed out no matter which disk is selected in the left-hand pane. Does anyone know why this is so and/or what alternative ways there are of repairing permissions?
The problem persists whether I start the computer from the recovery system (command-r) or not.
Thanks.

Hi again and thanks for bearing with me!
I haven't done any cleanup, however there are only a couple of files in /Library/Receipts/, all very old, so I'm guessing the receipts are kept elsewhere after OS X 10.5, since the KB article you referred me to explicitly refers to pre- 10.5 systems.
The disk utility log in console and the info in the disk utility itself both give exactly the same info, which is basically what you’ve given:
          Owners Enabled :           Yes
          Can Turn Owners Off :           Yes
          Can Repair Permissions :           Yes
          Can Be Verified :           Yes
          Can Be Repaired :           Yes
          Can Be Formatted :           Yes
          Bootable :           Yes
          Supports Journaling :           Yes
          Journaled :           Yes
          Disk Number :           0
          Partition Number :           2
If I understand correctly, this would all mean that I should be able to click “verify permissions” in the disk utility, but for some mysterious reason I cannot.
However, in the KB article (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452) I notice it says “While started from an installation disc in Mac OS X v10.5 and later, a user's home directory permissions can be reset using the "Reset Password" utility.” Does this mean that if I use the reset password utility I can reset permissions and therefore not need to use the repair permissions function of the disk utility? Or is this something completely unrelated to what I’m trying to do?
I really appreciate your help very much - the only reason I wanted to repair permissions was that it was one of the recommended solutions to a problem I’ve had with microsoft office, which thankfully has now been solved after reinstalling os x and office, but it still bugs me that the option to repair permissions seems unavailable!
Anyway, it's not the end of the world if it can't be solved, you've helped me learn a lot in the process!
George

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Unless one is working in ColdFusion, or has special
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Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.projectseven.com/go
- DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs,
Tutorials & Resources
==================
"Alan" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:C4F834C6.30E30D%[email protected]..
>A guess- they set this up as an "RDS" ftp site, and it is
editing the live
> files on the server.
>
> To make a regular ftp site connection, make a New site.
> If it's CS3 version, make sure you pick "site" and not
"RDS"
> Enter all the details, and make a "regular" ftp
connection, not an RDS
> connection.
>
> --
> Alan
> Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver
>
>
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
>
>
>

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