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a couple of questions for a mac newbie thank you

D

daz1985

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2013
23
0
hi,

i bought a mac mini 2012 off ebay yesterday and the previous owner said he'd cleared it. however when i am on the mail app when i go to preferences for where to download attachments it lists his name next to a picture of a house, and then has my wifes name as she is another user i set up but i am not listed!

i dont want any trace of this guy on my mac so how do i delete it? i just did a reinstall of the os but nothing has changed! i would like to start the mac up as if im the first owner.

another issue again with the mail app is that although my gmail is technically set up (it accesses my inbox when i launch the app) if i want to do anything more it keeps coming up with an error message saying 'mail cant connect to the account "gmail". enter the password for the user 'apple user@gmail.com.' what the hell is that all about?!

thanks in advance:)
 
thanks very much for replies

no i didnt do a clean install i just chose the option 'reinstall OS x' thinking that would be enough. looking at 'consultants' link does this mean i can do the clean install without manually creating any recovery discs or partitions as id rather not have to do that. i dont mind losing all the data on the mac as i havent really added anything since my transfer from pc as i wanted to first get these couple of issues ironed out.
 
It is quite difficult (maybe impossible) to do an install without the recovery HD and even though you don't have anything on there now of importance, you most likely will have in the future. Leave recovery HD its really small and unobtrusive.
 
is it easy to create this drive? i have no disc drive as its a mac mini and i have 1 external hard drive which has got all my media files on it (guessing remaining space is about 40gb) so will it be big enough to use?
 
The recovery HD is built into your boot drive and takes up ~20GB and isn't optional like I said. Very small and useful
 
Really? I just assumed it was the size of a ML install but obviously not. If its 650mb then even better
 
daz1985 said:
thanks very much for replies

no i didnt do a clean install i just chose the option 'reinstall OS x' thinking that would be enough. looking at 'consultants' link does this mean i can do the clean install without manually creating any recovery discs or partitions as id rather not have to do that. i dont mind losing all the data on the mac as i havent really added anything since my transfer from pc as i wanted to first get these couple of issues ironed out.
Click to expand...

'Reinstall OS X' just reinstalls the core OS X components rather than the whole operating system. As others have mentioned, wipe Macintosh HD through Disk Utility in the Recovery partition and then click 'Reinstall OS X'.

That'll work a treat. :)
 
lehoffboss said:
Really? I just assumed it was the size of a ML install but obviously not. If its 650mb then even better
Click to expand...

The recovery drive only holds a small install style OS that contains a few apps like disk utility and terminal. The actual OS X files you load in a recovery have to either be downloaded if it is a fresh install or have to come from a separate physical TM back or another image. So your 20GB you refer to comes from somewhere else.

If you don't have the Recovery Drive (formatted or fresh drive) it is no problem. You can always load from internet recovery (CMD-option-R) or from a Time Machine drive. The Time Machine Drive has a 'recovery drive' built in (except the Time Capsule). In fact if you have a raw drive (no OS or Recovery Drive on it) and have your TM drive plugged in then the Mac will boot automatically from it to the Recovery Drive on the TM drive.

You can also load from a USB Recovery Disk.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4848?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Anyway whether you had a Recovery Drive or not is not really an issue as it is built automatically in the OS X fresh install or loaded when you do the Time Machine install.
 
i apologise for this but are you saying that i will have to create a partition on an external drive to create a backup before i use that disc utility? then that will be a fresh install of the OS?

where is this recovery drive people are talking about??
 
Very easy man.

Computer off, power on and hold command, option, and R. This will load up internet recovery. Wipe the drive in here and reinstall OSX. it will download over the air direct from apple servers.
 
daz1985 said:
i apologise for this but are you saying that i will have to create a partition on an external drive to create a backup before i use that disc utility? then that will be a fresh install of the OS?

where is this recovery drive people are talking about??
Click to expand...


No Mac coming with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has physical restore media included.

OS X: About OS X Recovery

If you want to make a bootable installation medium, you can follow these steps:
​



And if you chose to use Internet Recovery and not download the OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installer before shutting down your Mac, know that the installer is around 4 GB in size, thus it might take a while to download.
 
daz1985 said:
i apologise for this but are you saying that i will have to create a partition on an external drive to create a backup before i use that disc utility? then that will be a fresh install of the OS?

where is this recovery drive people are talking about??
Click to expand...

The recovery partition is just a hidden, 650MB partition on your drive that has some tools that allow you to reformat your drive and then download the OS from Apple over the Internet. The recovery partition does not contain the OS installer itself. Here is a good article that explains how it works.

To get your system back to factory fresh, use Internet Recovery to reinstall the OS. Do a command-option-r (all three keys at once) boot and you will see a spinning globe for a bit then a recovery screen. Start Disk Utility and select the drive name at the top (like Seagate 500GB or whatever) then erase the drive. Then quit Disk Utility and click install OS. This will take a while as the entire 4.7GB OS needs to DL over the Internet. Once that is done it will run your through a setup wizard to setup your new account.
 
Weaselboy said:
The recovery partition is just a hidden, 650MB partition on your drive that has some tools that allow you to reformat your drive and then download the OS from Apple over the Internet. The recovery partition does not contain the OS installer itself. Here is a good article that explains how it works.

To get your system back to factory fresh, use Internet Recovery to reinstall the OS. Do a command-option-r (all three keys at once) boot and you will see a spinning globe for a bit then a recovery screen. Start Disk Utility and select the drive name at the top (like Seagate 500GB or whatever) then erase the drive. Then quit Disk Utility and click install OS. This will take a while as the entire 4.7GB OS needs to DL over the Internet. Once that is done it will run your through a setup wizard to setup your new account.
Click to expand...

brilliant thankyou this seems simple to do so I will do it tonight after work (unless anyone else thinks i shouldnt) thanks to all for responses
 
hi just an update to say i followed the instructions and it has worked so thankyou all so much!
 
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