How to check Battery Cycle at start up/set up screen

[sknsnw9]

Hey all,

I'm selling my mac on ebay and someone have a question for me and I totally forgot to check that before I did a computer wipe.

I just did a clean instal of Mavericks and left it at the set up screen. I don't want to through it again just to check the battery cycle.

Is there a way I can check it at boot up by pushing one of the buttons like the in the EFI? I dont know if it say the battery cycle in there?

Thanks

 

[GGJstudios]

Hey all,

I'm selling my mac on ebay and someone have a question for me and I totally forgot to check that before I did a computer wipe.

I just did a clean instal of Mavericks and left it at the set up screen. I don't want to through it again just to check the battery cycle.

Is there a way I can check it at boot up by pushing one of the buttons like the in the EFI? I dont know if it say the battery cycle in there?

Thanks

No, you have to complete the setup process, then you can access battery info in System Profiler.

 

[sknsnw9]

I was afraid that I would have to go through the set up. Thanks.

 

[Weaselboy]

I was afraid that I would have to go through the set up. Thanks.

You don't need to go through setup.

Do you have access to another Mac? Use this Apple utility with a 1GB+ USB key to make a bootable recovery key. Then option key boot to the USB key. Once the recovery screen comes up go to the Utilities menu and launch Terminal. Now enter the command below in Terminal and you will get your battery stats, including cycles.

ioreg -w0 -l | grep Capacity

 

[hfg]

Not to hijack this thread, but on a related note since 2 of the best responders are posting here ...

I too like to prep my for-sale Macs such that they boot to the out-of-box setup screen for the new owner.

Is there any way go past this point such that the auxiliary programs such as iWork and iLife can be installed, plus any updates can be applied, then reset the startup boot to return to the new-user setup screen?

This way I know everything is installed properly and the system is truly ready to run for the new owner.

Thanks
-howard

 

[Weaselboy]

Not to hijack this thread, but on a related note since 2 of the best responders are posting here ...

I too like to prep my for-sale Macs such that they boot to the out-of-box setup screen for the new owner.

Is there any way go past this point such that the auxiliary programs such as iWork and iLife can be installed, plus any updates can be applied, then reset the startup boot to return to the new-user setup screen?

This way I know everything is installed properly and the system is truly ready to run for the new owner.

Thanks
-howard

Sure... just do your clean install then make an admin account (let's call it temp) and update and install whatever you want.

Now boot into single user mode by holding command-s when you boot. That will get you to a black screen with a command line prompt.

Now enter the commands below one at a time followed by return. What you are doing here is mounting the file system then removing the preferences and temp account you made and making the system setup rerun at boot.

mount -uw /

rm -rf /Library/Preferences/

rm -rf /users/temp

rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/temp.plist

mv /var/db/.AppleSetupDone /var/db/.RunLanguageChooserToo

The issue I see here is where are you getting the iWorks and iLife apps from? If you install them from the original DVDs you will be okay, but if you install them from the App Store with your AppleID, the new owner will not be able to update those apps since they won't have your AppleID.

 

[hfg]

Sure... just do your clean install then make an admin account (let's call it temp) and update and install whatever you want.

Now boot into single user mode by holding command-s when you boot. That will get you to a black screen with a command line prompt.

Now enter the commands below one at a time followed by return. What you are doing here is mounting the file system then removing the preferences and temp account you made and making the system setup rerun at boot.

mount -uw /

rm -rf /Library/Preferences/

rm -rf /users/temp

rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/temp.plist

mv /var/db/.AppleSetupDone /var/db/.RunLanguageChooserToo

The issue I see here is where are you getting the iWorks and iLife apps from? If you install them from the original DVDs you will be okay, but if you install them from the App Store with your AppleID, the new owner will not be able to update those apps since they won't have your AppleID.

Thanks Weaselboy ... that is what I was looking for.

I do have the original DVDs for these apps to use ... but I suppose any updates will have the same AppleID issue?

Is the AppleID issue also encountered when using Recovery to reload the OS X image since you have to login to the Apple store to qualify your machine?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks Weaselboy ... that is what I was looking for.

I do have the original DVDs for these apps to use ... but I suppose any updates will have the same AppleID issue?

Is the AppleID issue also encountered when using Recovery to reload the OS X image since you have to login to the Apple store to qualify your machine?

No... if you install from the DVDs, an AppleID will not be needed to apply updates for the apps.

OS updates will not need an AppleID either, but yes if the new owner ever wanted to reinstall the OS they would need an AppleID that purchased the OS. What you can do is just install Mavericks with your AppleID, then tell the new owner to first thing go to the App Store under their AppleID and "purchase" the free Mavericks. Then if they ever wanted to reinstall they could with their own AppleID.

 

[MacRail]

Is there a way I can check it at boot up by pushing one of the buttons like the in the EFI? I dont know if it say the battery cycle in there?

Back to the original question - yes, this is possible. Boot ⌘-S to enter single user mode under the terminal. Then type:

system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Cycle Count" | awk '{print $3}'

That will give you the cycle count.

 

[KhunJay]

You are to be commended for keeping Mavericks for so long
and not updating unnecessarily...bet it runs just great.

 

[MacRail]

You are to be commended for keeping Mavericks for so long and not updating unnecessarily...bet it runs just great.

Although this was tested on Ventura, the ability to boot into single user mode goes way back, much earlier than Mavericks. Also, the system_profiler command has been around since Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). So I see no reason why this would not have worked with Mavericks. But I mainly added this post for people that maybe running into this challenge (as I did) with the latest MacOS systems, and letting them know there is a solution.