I bought a used MacBook and need to reinstall my own Ios. How do I do that without erasing everything?

Hi jackshipley,

Like the other people have said, iOS is the operating system for iPhone, iPad, etc. MacOS is the operating system for MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, etc

To reinstall MacOS without loosing your data, restart your Mac in recovery mode, hold down command r at startup and then select Reinstall MacOS from the MacOS Utilities window.

I hope this helps.

Can you explain what you mean by "reinstall my own iOS" - are you asking if you can upgrade to Catalina?

You need to identify the exact model of your MacBook and to understand that iOS is an operating system for iPhones and iPads, not MacBooks or any other kind of Mac.

follow the steps in this article regardless if it's your wifes or not if you want to do a clean install.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065

Depending on the age of the computer you should boot into Internet Recovery Mode or local Recovery Mode to erase the drive and reinstall macOS.

How to erase a drive:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208496

Here are the steps the previous owner should have performed before selling the computer:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065

iOS is iPhones and iPads, not Macs.

Soren Pearson wrote:

To reinstall MacOS without loosing your data

The thread subject line mentions buying a used laptop. Whenever a person acquires a used computer, they should always erase the drive and perform a clean install of the OS because you have no idea what kind of nasty surprises could be hidden on the drive. This information was included in my previous post with the linked Apple article on how to prepare a computer for resale or disposal.

What model of MacBook? Which one do you have? There are 14 differentiations models from 2006 to 2017. How many times do we need to ask this question?

Soren Pearson wrote:

HWTech,

Thanks for clarifying, I would do the same thing myself if I acquired a used machine. Sorry for adding something that doesn't help. I'll be more careful next time.

It is easy to miss things and it has happened to me before as well :-)

There are currently 14 different models of MacBook, which one do you have?

HWTech,

Thanks for clarifying, I would do the same thing myself if I acquired a used machine. Sorry for adding something that doesn't help. I'll be more careful next time.