madmechanic240

Q: how to change ownership?

Hello all,

 

First time poster to the support communities. I've been a mac user since a young age but this is something I'm going to need advice on since it's outside of my comfort range in dealing with computers.

 

I'm purchasing an early 2008 iMac 20" desktop from a friend, which originally had shipped with OS X 10.5. It has since been upgraded to 10.9.5. My friend bought it as an Apple refurbished unit. I have been researching on how to go about wiping the hard drive and changing the ownership to me. The reason I'm posting here is because I'm finding a lot of conflicting information on how to go about reformatting the drive and reinstalling the OS. I've read that prior to 10.6 you'll need the recovery CD to do the reinstallation and that from 10.6 on, there's a recovery mode that allows you to do it without any CD's. That's where I'm confused and possibly reading bad information.

 

Some additional details:

 

-It's a refurbished mac so there are no recovery discs that normally used to ship with every new computer. Why that is I have no idea.

-My friend has the Snow Leopard 10.6 CD and it's being included with the computer.

-iMac 8.1 (early '08), 320GB Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.66GHz, 2GB memory, 20"

 

So I guess my question is this: What's the best way to clear my friend's information off of the computer and change the ownership to my name?

 

Thanks!

 

Matt

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jan 16, 2015 3:24 PM

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Q: how to change ownership?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Jan 16, 2015 3:27 PM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 10 (271,328 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 16, 2015 3:27 PM in response to madmechanic240

    Clean Install of Snow Leopard

     

         1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came

             with your computer.  Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.

             After the chime press and hold down the  "C" key.  Release the key when you see

             a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.

     

         2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue

             button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.

             After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive

             size.)  Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.  Set the number of

             partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button

             and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended

             (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.

     

         3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed

             with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.

     

         4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup

             Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which

             you will be running a fresh install of OS X.  You can now begin the update process

             by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your

             installation current.

     

    Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

  • by madmechanic240,

    madmechanic240 madmechanic240 Jan 16, 2015 5:50 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2015 5:50 PM in response to Kappy

    Excellent, I'll proceed with that tomorrow morning. Thank you!

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Jan 16, 2015 6:10 PM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 10 (271,328 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 16, 2015 6:10 PM in response to madmechanic240

    Note that your friend has left software on the computer purchased through his Apple ID. You cannot update any of it nor reinstall it. And, you can't do that unless you reinstall an OS on it that belongs to you. Defining a new admin account doesn't fix this. Only erasing the drive and starting from scratch does. If you want this done right then I disagree with doing what rccharles has suggested. This is no different than what must be done when you sell the computer.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Jan 16, 2015 7:02 PM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 7 (32,103 points)
    iPad
    Jan 16, 2015 7:02 PM in response to madmechanic240

    As an additional thought (aside from agreeing 100% with Kappy as the licensing agreement for any OS obtained at the app stores specifically states that it is not transferable and must be removed before selling the computer):

     

    If the 10.6 install disk that is being included is a retail disk (picture of a Snow Leopard) rather than a machine specific install disk (grey), then be aware that it will not include any extra applications such as iWork or iLife; however, those are still available from online vendors/ebay at a very reasonable price.

     

    As for using recovery vs. install disks: your model is too old to be updated for recovery - see this:

     

    Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support

     

    Even if it could be - as I did my 2010 - internet recovery will not work as expected because it is supposed to install the original OS. Well, it can't because OS versions prior to Lion are not available from Apple's servers. For those earlier versions, you need the install disks.

  • by bobdude06119,

    bobdude06119 bobdude06119 Jan 16, 2015 7:05 PM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2015 7:05 PM in response to madmechanic240

    Don't even bother. It's not even intuitive

  • by madmechanic240,

    madmechanic240 madmechanic240 Jan 17, 2015 1:33 AM in response to babowa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2015 1:33 AM in response to babowa

    I'm glad I asked about this process before doing anything. I really appreciate the clear answers. Yes, the 10.6 install disc is a genuine copy purchased from the Apple store. As far as additional software, I'll need to put Microsoft Office on it because I need Word and Excel for sure, and Powerpoint once in a while. I'd like this computer to be my main photo editing rig as well because of the larger screen and hard drive capacity over my Macbook Pro, so Photoshop will be in the works too. The standard 2GB ram seems to be enough for most things but I may consider upping that later on if it becomes an issue.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Jan 17, 2015 7:42 AM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 7 (32,103 points)
    iPad
    Jan 17, 2015 7:42 AM in response to madmechanic240

    Since you appear to have the retail disk for 10.6, follow Kappy's instructions to boot from it, then erase the internal drive, and reinstall 10.6. Update to 10.6.8 via Software Update. SL runs well with 2 GB of RAM unless you install some RAM heavy applications - then you might want to add some.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Jan 17, 2015 8:19 AM in response to madmechanic240
    Level 9 (72,273 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 17, 2015 8:19 AM in response to madmechanic240

    This will save you some time with Software Updare.

     

    10.6.8 Combo Updater


    If you do decide to add RAM, the 2 places I’ve seen recommended most to buy reliable RAM are below. I have purchased RAM several times from Other World Computing and have always been very satisfied with the product and service. They have on-line instructions on how to replace the RAM. OWC has also tested RAM above what Apple states is the maximum. I now have 6GB installed on a machine supposedly limited to 4 GB.

     

    Crucial

     

    Other World Computing