Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Please, PLEASE help me Apple-ite's

J

JohnyAppleSeed76

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 19, 2016
8
0
Spring, TX
I recently bought a Mac 24" computer used from a friend of a friend. When i set it up it seemed to work fine, as i started using it a bit more i noticed it wasn't running at 100%, so I did some research to findout how to reset the Mac with command+R and reinstall the OS X (Lion) however when it asks me to put in my Apple ID of course it doest work. the Mac really is an AMAZING machine, I would really appreciate some help from you Apple-ite's. Right now I'm its on the page that says (Mac OS X Utilities) there are 4 options 1. Restore from Time Machine 2. Reinstall Mac OS X 3. Get help online 4. Disk Utility Can some please give me some good news? Thanks for any help
 
Last edited:
What do you want to do?
Erase, and reinstall to get a fresh, new system install?
If your iMac is aluminum, and not the older white model, you can upgrade to latest El Capitan, if you want to do that.
That will work best, if there is sufficient RAM installed.

If the software on that iMac is linked to the AppleID for the original owner, HE would have purchased Lion, and you could, with your friend's AppleID, download the Lion installer through the App Store.
You can use that installer to create a bootable USB installer for Lion, which is pretty simple to do.
That bootable installer is not linked to the original owner's AppleID (some here will try to say otherwise, but that is just not true), so you can erase the hard drive completely, and reinstall a fresh Lion system, if you want to stay with that.
The OTHER possibility is that a hard drive that might be more than 5 years old may simply not be working as good as it used to. Replacing the hard drive with new, or updating the hard drive to an SSD will give you a nice jump in performance.
If you have an aluminum iMac, you can upgrade to at least 6GB of RAM memory, which will be good to have, regardless of what you do.
 
No, my friend didn't help me out. She bought it from a friend of hers a few yrs ago and never really used it, so i don't know who the orignal owner(s) To answer the next question, it is the white plastic, late 2006 model and it does have Lion on it, however vi don't have the Apple ID
[doublepost=1455920650][/doublepost]Orignally i thought I would like to wipe it clean and start fresh. Is that possible? The machine seems to work great, but I'm compairing it to HP, Windows junk LOL!
 
JohnyAppleSeed76 said:
No, my friend didn't help me out. She bought it from a friend of hers a few yrs ago and never really used it, so i don't know who the orignal owner(s) To answer the next question, it is the white plastic, late 2006 model and it does have Lion on it, however vi don't have the Apple ID
[doublepost=1455920650][/doublepost]Orignally i thought I would like to wipe it clean and start fresh. Is that possible? The machine seems to work great, but I'm compairing it to HP, Windows junk LOL!
Click to expand...

Just so I am clear, after you did the command-r boot to recovery... did you use Disk Utility to erase the disk, so you now no longer have an operating system on there you can boot to?

If that is the case, you are in a bit of a pickle. Do you have access to a friends Mac? If you do, you can purchase Lion from Apple here. Then Apple will email you a code. On the friend's Mac login to the App Store with your own AppleID then redeem that code under your account so you now "own" Lion. No need to download Lion on the friend's Mac... once you made the purchase you can cancel the download then go back to your Mac. Now do the command-r again and when prompted for an AppleID, enter yours and it will give you Lion since you now have it associated with your AppleID.

If you do not have access to another Mac, you can buy the Snow Leopard DVD installer from Amazon here or from Apple. Then insert the DVD and hold the C key at start to boot to it. Then erase the disk with Disk Utility and install Snow Leopard. Then run software update to get Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 that gives you the App Store. Then you can get Lion and install using the code process I described earlier.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
  • Like
Reactions: cincygolfgrrl and Goatllama
This is wh
1455921937121255065060.jpg
ere I am at right now
[doublepost=1455922099][/doublepost]Thats where I am right now. Does that help you help me ? lol
 
CoastalOR said:
OP: Good advice from Weaselboy. I will add that you can also get the Snow Leopard from Apple ($19.99 with free shipping) for a cheaper price than Amazon.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the catch... for some reason I was thinking it was $29.99 from Apple and Amazon was cheaper (and quicker).
[doublepost=1455922322][/doublepost]
JohnyAppleSeed76 said:
This is where I am at right now
[doublepost=1455922099][/doublepost]Thats where I am right now. Does that help you help me ? lol
Click to expand...

You won't be able to erase the whole disk while booted to that recovery partition. Once you get the Snow Leopard DVD... insert the disk then boot up while holding the C key. That will bring up an installer screen. From there launch Disk Utility and go to the erase tab. Then in the left column select the very top where it says 320.07GB now. Then select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in the dropdown then click the Erase button at the lower right. That will wipe the entire drive including the Lion recovery partition that is on there now.

Then quit Disk Utility and install the OS.
 
Ok, to be perfectly clear. I can't purchase it online, I mean a download? I have to have the actual disc. Is that correct? Then I have to erase the main one, is that going to be the only one that I erase? You said when I erase that one it will get them all right?
[doublepost=1455922860][/doublepost]One more question, is that the best and or the only OS X that I can get for this Mac?
[doublepost=1455923234][/doublepost]Mac Snow Leopard 10.6.3 right?
 
JohnyAppleSeed76 said:
Ok, to be perfectly clear. I can't purchase it online, I mean a download? I have to have the actual disc. Is that correct? Then I have to erase the main one, is that going to be the only one that I erase? You said when I erase that one it will get them all right?
[doublepost=1455922860][/doublepost]One more question, is that the best and or the only OS X that I can get for this Mac?
Click to expand...

There is no legal way to download Snow Leopard, so you are going to need to order the DVD. Either get that DVD somehow or access Lion like I explained on another Mac are pretty much your options at this point.

If you had access to another Mac with Snow Leopard or Lion running, you could also use an external drive to clone the install to that drive then clone it over to your Mac, but that does not sound like an option for you either.

If you erase the disk like I described it will wipe everything on there and you will have one partition when you are done.

Either Snow Leopard or Lion will work well on that Mac.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CoastalOR
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back