big sur, cannot remove previous administartor

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Level 1

8 points

big sur, cannot remove previous administartor

I bought an open box iMac retina 5K, 27-in, 2020 and trying to use migration assistant but it asked for admin authorization from pev owner. I tried to remove using terminal but wouldn't work. I did a clean install of big sur and did a restore from time machine managed to get my stuff from old comp (high sierra) onto this one but once again asked for previous admin password ti migrate data. I could tell it was previous because it was misspelled. when go to users & groups in sys pref only I am listed there are no other users. my folders are on the desktop but are all empty

iMac 27″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Oct 27, 2021 6:25 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,144 points

Oct 27, 2021 6:47 PM in response to peter zuck

You need to erase the drive completely to remove the license information linking it to the previous owner.

Just installing the OS over the top of the current won't clear that information.

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Answer 2

Owl-53

Level 10

102,571 points

Oct 28, 2021 2:32 AM in response to peter zuck

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac

Since this was not done by previous owner - it falls to the new owner for the reasons already stated by other posting.

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Answer 3

Oct 27, 2021 8:02 PM in response to Barney-15E

On that note, the Mac could be currently improperly erased, and the previous Data volume could be lingering around. If that's the case, it could show up in Migration Assistant as a migration source, and be encrypted such that the previous owner's password is required to unlock it.

To fix this issue, the Mac should be erased via Recovery Assistant (if it doesn't appear in macOS Recovery, open Terminal and run "resetpassword"), or it should be erased at the APFS container level in Disk Utility (make sure to select View -> Show All Devices).

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big sur, cannot remove previous administartor

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