I recently purchased an older Macbook Pro from an online seller. The previous owner is still signed in as the administrator, and the seller does not have their password. How do I remove that account and create my own?
MacBook Pro
You and/or the owner need to do this:
What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - http://support.apple.com/HT201065
You can erase it as suggested earlier, but depending upon the age there may be certain unpleasant things waiting for you. The owner may have set activation lock. The owner may also have set a firmware password.
About Activation Lock on your Mac - https://support.apple.com/HT208987
"What to do if your Mac starts up to an Activate Mac window
If you've purchased a Mac from someone other than Apple or an authorized Apple reseller and the device starts up to an Activate Mac window, the device is still linked to the previous owner's account. You'll need to ask them to remove the device from their account."
How to set a firmware password on your Mac - Apple Support - including how to remove a lock and what to do if you forgot your password.
https://support.apple.com/HT204455
The articles state which features are implemented and supported by which system and model versions, hence my saying, "depending upon the age." I usually assume people will read links when I post them and get the details from there which is why I don't post details in my replies here.
Ok, I’ve been trying to start it up in recovery mode (Control + R) and it’s not working. It just starts up normally no matter what. Could there be a reason for this, or am I missing something? I’m not very familiar with Macs.
I'm not seeing where you told us exactly which model computer this is other than "older MacBook Pro". Nor am I seeing the system version information anywhere which means we are doing a lot of guessing form our end. Anything with Lion should be able to boot to Mac Recovery, though not all can boot to Internet Recovery (which you have not been using).
There's the problem. 10.5.8 is too old, and does not have a Recovery Mode.
You will need the original Leopard discs for your model of Mac to reinstall macOS, or a set of retail Snow Leopard install discs to install Snow Leopard from scratch.
Unfortunately Apple no longer sells Snow Leopard. You may need to find some on Ebay or the like to wipe the Mac and remove the admin user.
You may want to give these threads a look:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/04/25/change-admin-password-mac/
You'll still want to find Snow Leopards discs if you want to update out of Leopard at any point though.
The Mac App Store driven OS updates are only available with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later.
Got it! Here’s what worked:
Wipe the computer clean, and set it up from scratch: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support
Limnos is correct, however, activation lock on MacBook Pros is only available in 2018 and later models running Catalina.
Its not control+r, its option+r. If you have a Windows keyboard, that translates to the "alt" key.
Sorry, Command + R is what I meant to type. It seems to be too old to boot into internet recovery mode. I’m a little concerned that it won’t boot into any recovery mode at all, though.
I had a feeling it was going to turn out that way. Thanks for the help, everyone.
How Do I Remove the Previous Owner’s Account From a Second-Hand Purchased Macbook?
