I recently bought this macbook pro (late 2011) online, but it still had the previous users music, photos, and apps,so I wanted to restore the MBP to it's factory settings. How long will it take?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch
If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch
If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
After I click earase it asks me if I'm sure I want to delete the disk because it has one partition. Do I erase or cancel?
You should only Erase the main volume (usually Macintosh HD.) Do not change the Partitions. Erasing will remove all the files on the volume which is what you want to do.
I clicked erase but then it says "Disk erase failed, couldnt unmount disk"?
Then try this first:
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion
Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
It says "The partition map appears to be OK" and then I retry and it says the same disk erase failed message?
And, you are booting from the Recovery HD? If so and still have a problem, then there's something amiss in the drive's partition structure.
What you might try is to get a USB flash drive or create a small partition of 2 or 3 GBs on an external USB drive then use Lion Recovery Disk Assistant 1.0 to create a separate bootable Recovery HD. Then boot from the separate device to see if this will get the internal drive to unmount.
Do you happen to own a Snow Leopard DVD with an OS X version of 10.6.4 or later? If so then you might try starting the computer with it and see if you can then erase the main drive. Failing all this I don't know what more you can do. Your model should be capable of using Apple's Internet Recovery, but I'm not familiar with using it. See if you get anything helpful from:
OS X Lion- Run Software Update to use Lion Internet Recovery
OS X Lion- About Lion Recovery
OS X Lion's Internet Recovery tool is one more nail in the DVD's coffin
If you still have the boot disc your computer came with use that. Follow the instructions that are with it too.
It's supposedly a Late 2011 model so there won't be any discs. It comes with Lion pre-installed.
I found a macbook in the trash with a smashed up hanging off monitor. I broke it off, but a wire adapter for external monitor, I got it to come on but had to use it as guest because of password lock. so i did a factory restore, It never went on line, it says errors like can not unmount, i tried downloading mountain lion os, flash drives supports, I don't know what else to do. I thought is I wipe clean I can install the os. didn't work. I need to know after all this I messed up how can I fix this
How do I restore my macbook pro to factory settings?
