When you have purchased or have been given a pre-owned Apple computer or an iDevice
there are some things a previous owner should do before giving or selling the unit to another.
• How to prepare your Mac for sale - the safe mac:
http://www.thesafemac.com/how-to-prepare-your-mac-for-sale/
Read through the following article and when you contact the previous owner ask that they
help you set up the product so you can take possession of it in the fullest sense of ownership.
Or see if you can get money back; more likely if you bought (used) from a legitimate business.
• What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support
If you have one of these and the original purchaser has not released it from their accounts
and returned the computer to its original state so the next user can personalize it and make
full use of the features (including your own AppleID, App Store, iTunes, etc accounts) you
may find it won't work in some ways. Or it may work until you hope to do something, such as
update the software or upgrade to a newer OS X. Or buy & install apps from the App store.
About those iDevices: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. They also require extra special effort.
• What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Had you mentioned early on that you bought a computer that still required a previous owner
or user admin and other details had not been removed from the computer to prepare it for
you to use, the other replies likely would have covered aspects of this topic, per links above.
To use disk tools from the recovery partition in the hard drive, there is a startup key sequence.
If you have somehow wiped the drive (in another enclosure or computer) the Recovery may be
erased. Some aspects of hard drive handling won't help re-set or de-personalize the Mac.
• OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
• Using Apple Hardware Test - Apple Support
• Apple OS X and Time Machine Tips:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Good luck & happy computing! 🙂