Kernel panic when booting into recovery/safe mode

[CarbonImage]

I've just got a second hand mac mini server (mid 2012) and despite being 'wiped' it still has an admin password and a lot of the old user's software still installed, as well as a lot of tedious settings etc.

I restarted it with cmd-r held down, and got no further than the boot screen before it restarting again and telling me the familiar kernel panic message 'Your computer restarted because of a problem'. I can boot into startup manager, where I can see the recovery drive, but selecting it again results in a kernel panic. I cannot boot into safe mode. Does anybody have an idea of what might be causing this? It's really annoying me as I just want to use my new mac!

Thanks.

 

[jbarley]

Have you tried "internet recovery mode" (shift+cmd+r) at startup?

 

[CarbonImage]

Have just tried this and can confirm the mac exhibits the same behaviour (failing to boot and then rebooting with the error message)

Edit: Have also tried resetting the nvram to no avail. The computer runs fine once started (albeit exhibiting erratic behaviour which may or may not be down the previous user's preferences and software.) Emailed the original owner trying to determine the admin password but he seems to be a bit of an inexperienced user, and keeps telling me he 'deleted' the password, obviously thinking that by removing the password from login he's removed it completely. Also says he 'wiped' the machine by reinstalling osx from recovery mode, which leads me to believe he's not formatted the drives first. Could this be what's causing the issues?
Going to try and get to an Apple store but I'm not sure if they'll believe I've purchased it legally if I don't even know the admin password.

 

[Negritude]

Kernel panics in recovery mode sound like bad memory chips to me.

And the machine was never wiped. The previous user was clueless and/or damaged something.