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saraybach54

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 21, 2014
3
0
HELP!!!
I've just bought a used iMac 2008 and when I tried to download OS X Yosemite on the Macintosh HD disk it asks for a password... under the name "Fred Bloggs" ...?!
The man i bought it from has no idea what the password is?
 

blueroom

macrumors 603
Feb 15, 2009
6,381
26
Toronto, Canada
Assuming it didn't fall off a truck...

Reboot, Command+R, reformat (disk utility) & reinstall OS X, never ever buy a used computer without reformatting it.

edit: it's a 2008, it'll probably not have a recovery partition. You'll need OS X install disks.
 

saraybach54

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 21, 2014
3
0
sorry... I'm old and new at this stuff... so can you speak in plain english please?
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,126
15,586
California
HELP!!!
I've just bought a used iMac 2008 and when I tried to download OS X Yosemite on the Macintosh HD disk it asks for a password... under the name "Fred Bloggs" ...?!
The man i bought it from has no idea what the password is?

I think we can get you fixed up, but need a bit more information.

Click the little Apple at the very top left of the screen then select About this Mac and tell us what OS X version it says you are on.

Now click that same little Apple thingy again and select System Preferences, then go to the Users & Groups pane. What does it say there under Current User.... is you name listed there?

Now open the App Store app (where you tried to download Yosemite). Click where it says Account on the upper right of the screen. If probably will say Fredd Boggs there and will ask for a password. If it does, click sign out in that window. Now in the same window click Create AppleID and setup and account for yourself. (I'm assuming here you never had an AppleID/iCloud account?).

You should now be able to download Yosemite under your own account.

Come back though and answer my other questions so we can get you setup correctly on the new Mac.
 
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