Please help me factory reset Apple Macbook A1181.

I bought a few used Apple Macbook A1181 laptops and I am running into a problem with one of them.


It seems that the seller did not factory reset it and now I cannot login to the machine (since I would need to know the login of the previous person who used the machine). I am also unable to access the guest account as a way to get into the computer.


Trying to factory reset (so I can enter root commands) did not work either.


Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fully restore this laptop to factory settings in this scenario ?


Thank you very much !


Joeyz101

Posted on Sep 18, 2023 8:19 PM

Reply
3 replies

Sep 19, 2023 10:09 AM in response to ku4hx

Thanks for your replies ku4hx !


I purchased a small lot of 5 A1181 laptops. I was able to successfully factory reset 3 out of the 5 by following the steps outlined in this 2 minute video below:


Factory reset your MacBook : Mac without restoration disc or usb - YouTube


The difference I noticed with the other 2 laptops that I could not factory reset is that when I power the laptop on I am asked to login and of course I do not have the login information. I powered the laptop down and then held down COMMAND and S and powered the laptop back up but it doesn't allow me to enter the commands.


Do you think pulling out the ram would allow me to bypass the login details (I read that somewhere else but not sure if it would be specific to my situation with the A1181 laptops). Do you think that creating a bootable installer for Mac OS X would work given what I described above ?


Thank you very much for your thoughts and help !


Joeyz101

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Please help me factory reset Apple Macbook A1181.

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