Recently acquired iMac - Want to do fresh install of El Capitan

Hi,

I am new to he world of Mac - I have recently acquired my Sons iMac (27 inch late 2009) which has been well looked after and has already been upgraded to El Capitan. I am not a complete novice in computers as I have been using, building and repairing PC's since MS Windows 3 onwards... and I have to wonder why it's taken me so long to get to Mac??

There are things I would like to do with this new (to me) iMac before I start to use it in earnest firstly it has lots of apps and programs and games which my son installed and used that I probably never will, I'd like to do a fresh install of OS-X El Capitan so that I can refresh the whole system as if new. I would also like to upgrade the memory, it currently has 4GB of Memory (2 x 2GB Dimms) and I would like to upgrade it to it's full potential of 16Gb (4 x 4GB) I have seen compatible SODIMMS available from Crucial.com Is this a job I could carry out given I have work on PC's etc and am no afraid to give it a go myself if its possible.

All advice will be helpful, (please excuse terminology if it's not correct in referring to all things Mac) Please be gentle :-)

Many Thanks in Advance

IanE

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Mar 6, 2016 10:12 AM

18 replies

IanE - GB Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 6, 2016 9:02 PM in response to babowa

Hi again,

I did as you say... it showed the apple symbol and a status / progress bar bar and I then got asked to confirm my WiFi password and go that menu which I used the disk utility and then the reinstall OS X ... but then it stated it was temporarily unavailable... I gave up at 2am GMT and got a couple of hours rest as I'm back out at 7.30am I can do anything with a windows or even linux PC... but these macs are odd... even the error messages don't tell you what the error is!! I spoke with an IT friend just before my last attempt and he was able to confirm that OS X variants were available and app store was working just fine!! I'm a little frustrated and tired but will give it one more go later when I can get the disks for it. But I'm starting to regret saving it from the scrapheap!! Thanks for your help thus far and if you have ideas on a solution I'm happy to try. Thanks again...

IanE - GB Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2016 3:38 PM in response to IanE - GB

Quick update on this, we managed to get to the bottom of this, it was indeed a licensing issue.

To do the clean install required my son to put in his Apple ID as this checks back to the original out of the box sign up on apple servers.

It would appear that the temporarily unavailable dialoge is something thrown up in such cases to prevent unlicenced installs. Once his original ID was input

It continued and installed the original Yosemite OS X and when restarted began the 'Out of the box experience' all over again.

I then entered my details as the owner and away it all went.

I have now updated and installed El capitan and its as fast and smooth as when it was purchased by my lad.

Thanks to babowa and OT for their input I am grateful for that.

Its been a frustrating way to start with Mac computing, but it has been interesting 😁 😕

babowa

Level 9

78,574 points

Mar 11, 2016 3:40 PM in response to IanE - GB

Great to hear it!

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Recently acquired iMac - Want to do fresh install of El Capitan