User profile for user: cherimoe
cherimoe Author
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Re-format Drive Without Admin Password

Hi there, someone donated a 13" MacBook Pro (2017) to our business that's running macOS Catalina 10.5.7. It has 2 user accounts and 1 admin account. The person who was using the MacBook was fired and they only have the password to one of the user accounts and not the admin. How can we reset this machine to factory settings? I can't even update to the current OS without the admin password. We also don't have a disk with an OS so I don't even know how we would re-format the disk. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Posted on Mar 2, 2023 2:45 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
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Posted on Mar 3, 2023 6:56 AM

@kaz-k already provided a link to the Apple instructions for accessing Internet Recovery Mode. While that article also talks about erasing a drive, those instructions do not mention selecting & erasing the whole physical drive. I did forget one step....within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility. I prefer this over Apple's method when performing a clean install on an Intel Mac as it will allow you to erase the system even if Filevault is enabled, but the password is not known.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
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Mar 3, 2023 6:56 AM in response to cherimoe

@kaz-k already provided a link to the Apple instructions for accessing Internet Recovery Mode. While that article also talks about erasing a drive, those instructions do not mention selecting & erasing the whole physical drive. I did forget one step....within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility. I prefer this over Apple's method when performing a clean install on an Intel Mac as it will allow you to erase the system even if Filevault is enabled, but the password is not known.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
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User level: Level 9
71,612 points

Mar 2, 2023 6:08 PM in response to cherimoe

Perform an SMC Reset which will power off the laptop immediately.


When booting to the macOS installer, you will need to use Disk Utility to erase the whole physical SSD as GUID partition and APFS (top option) assuming you are installing macOS 10.13+, otherwise erase the physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). Doing this should allow you to perform a clean install of macOS even if Filevault is enabled.


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Re-format Drive Without Admin Password

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