daughter has died - advice ref her MacBook please

[KathrynSheridan]

OP:

First, my condolences on the loss of your daughter.

Since you now have resolved the Apple ID problems, and (I'll assume) that you're signed out of everything...

What you need to do is to ERASE THE ENTIRE INTERNAL DRIVE, and then start over.

To do this, you need to boot to something called "internet recovery" first.

Here are the steps to take:
1. Power down, all the way off
2. Press the power on button and immediately hold down:
Command-OPTION-R
3. You'll need your wifi password to continue
4. The internet utilities take a while to load - be patient
5. When you get to the utilities, open Disk Utility
6. Go to the "view" menu (upper left), and choose "show all devices" (this is a VERY IMPORTANT step, don't forget it)
7. In the "list on the left", the "topmost item" will be the physical drive inside.
8. Click on the drive listing, then click "erase"
9. Choose "APFS" from the list of options
10. When the erase is done (should take only a few seconds), quit Disk Utility and open the OS installer
11. I'm thinking the Apple servers are going to offer you "Big Sur". That's fine.
12. Start "clicking through". The Mac will reboot one or more times, and the screen may go dark for a minute or two with no other indications of activity. You need to be patient.
13. When the OS install is done, you should see the initial setup screen (choose your language".
14. Start working your way through. Be careful with choosing a username and password, you can't change the username later on without A LOT of trouble.
15. You DO NOT need to create an iCloud account, email account, etc. right away. You can skip these steps if you wish and come back to them later.
16. When setup is done, you should be able to see the finder...

Good luck.
(looks like you may have already discovered this on your own...)

 

[KathrynSheridan]

Hi Fishrrman,

I had already managed, with help from people here, to start installing Mac OS BiG Sur before I read your post. Reading through them, I can see I didn‘t do your steps 5-10; I’m hoping that won’t cause any problems. It may be that I had done it without knowing it when I followed the steps to erase the MacBook. It’s all a bit confusing for me tbh so I don’t really remember what steps I did now. I was following the steps here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208496
Time will tell….There are 5 hours left to go, it says, before macOS Big Sur has finished installing.

 

[Big Bad D]

Sincerest condolences. It’s really refreshing to read a Macrumors thread where there is so much positive support. I hope you get everything sorted out, I can’t think of anything else to add beyond the good advice already given.

 

[profcutter]

Hi Fishrrman,

I had already managed, with help from people here, to start installing Mac OS BiG Sur before I read your post. Reading through them, I can see I didn‘t do your steps 5-10; I’m hoping that won’t cause any problems. It may be that I had done it without knowing it when I followed the steps to erase the MacBook. It’s all a bit confusing for me tbh so I don’t really remember what steps I did now. I was following the steps here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208496
Time will tell….There are 5 hours left to go, it says, before macOS Big Sur has finished installing.

If it’s installing now, you should be good to go.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I had already managed, with help from people here, to start installing Mac OS BiG Sur before I read your post. Reading through them, I can see I didn‘t do your steps 5-10; I’m hoping that won’t cause any problems."

I think that this could very well cause you problems.

If you intend to erase the drive and do a fresh/clean installation, you should erase the ENTIRE drive in order for this to go right.

It's possible that when you used disk utility, the "show all devices" option was already chosen. In this case, if the install goes through, that's ok.

If you find that things just aren't working as they should, my recommendation is that you print out my original instructions and then check them off step-by-step as you go along...

 

[nastysailboat]

Sounds like the OP wants to sell it, not continue to use it, so this isn’t really an option.

Ih I was under the impression they wanted to keep it to use?

 

[KayEm6419]

Hi Fishrrman,

I had already managed, with help from people here, to start installing Mac OS BiG Sur before I read your post. Reading through them, I can see I didn‘t do your steps 5-10; I’m hoping that won’t cause any problems. It may be that I had done it without knowing it when I followed the steps to erase the MacBook. It’s all a bit confusing for me tbh so I don’t really remember what steps I did now. I was following the steps here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208496
Time will tell….There are 5 hours left to go, it says, before macOS Big Sur has finished installing.

You're doing a great job KathrynSheridan, with what I can only imagine is a challenging, heart-wrenching task. My condolences to you and your family.

So glad to read that the photos/videos are safely retrieved!

Now, the time-consuming installation of Big Sur requires hands-off, lid open patience. I hope all goes smoothly here on.

Please take care!
Yours Truly, KM

 

[profcutter]

Ih I was under the impression they wanted to keep it to use?

Yep, I misunderstood the first post. Looks like they’re making progress now, though.

 

[KathrynSheridan]

THANK YOU EVERYBODY! Just thought I’d let you all know that it has worked! Thank you so much for all your help.

 

[Dave Braine]

Thank you so much! That has worked! ? There isn’t “Apple ID” as such, but it says “apple.com” Is that the same thing?

Yes, it is in terms of passwords.

 

[Bandaman]

THANK YOU EVERYBODY! Just thought I’d let you all know that it has worked! Thank you so much for all your help.

I'm really glad it worked out for you.

 

[wys]

glad it worked out for you. Its not relevant to OP at this point, but just wanted to throw out there that in this case I would have considered a slightly different approach

- do not wipe the laptop
- use the current user account to create a new admin user on the machine
- just use the machine as the new user

if you have trouble with user account permissions remember you can always create a new local admin user by booting into Single User Mode and deleting the file that macOS uses to denote the completion of initial setup on the machine

https://www.lifewire.com/create-new-admin-account-for-login-issues-2259976

maintaining the old user's account on the laptop might have been handy for dealing with access to their other accounts, if possible.

 

[macos9rules]

THANK YOU EVERYBODY! Just thought I’d let you all know that it has worked! Thank you so much for all your help.

Dear Kathryn,

First of all, my deepest condolences to you, your husband and your family. It must be a very difficult time to go through. Sending lots of positive vibes your way.

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, but it looks like you were able to figure it out. I don't know if you still need to find her Apple ID password, but if you do and you didn't wipe the computer yet, there is a way to find that information (as long as you have the computer password, and if she stored the password in her keychain).

To do this:
1. Go to Applications > Utilities on her Mac
2. Open Keychain Access
3. Search for "idmsa.apple.com" without the quotes
4. Double click the entry
5. Click on Show Password
6. Enter the computer password.

You will then be able to see her iCloud password.

I hope it helps!

Warm regards,