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Factory restore on Mac mini

SirAnthonyHopkins

SirAnthonyHopkins

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 29, 2020
948
1,896
Just got myself an M1 MacBook Air so it's time to sell my Mac mini.

However. I have two keyboards here. One is a Logitech bluetooth, one is an IKBC mechanical wired model. I can't get my Mac mini to boot into recovery mode from either. Not really sure what I'm supposed to do. Surely I don't need to buy a new Apple keyboard just to restore my Mac to factory settings. Is there a way I can wipe my data and set this up as a new Mac from within a regular boot?

Have googled around on this but all I can find are endless guides to restoring a Mac. I know how to do it, but I don't know how to do it when I don't have the equipment to boot into recovery mode.

Incidentally, I was able to start a boot from a Catalina install USB I had, but for security reasons I wasn't able to fully boot, it told me I had to access recovery mode to allow access ...
 
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no one? this is really frustrating, not sure what I'm going to do, short of going door to door and asking my neighbours if they have a wired keyboard I can borrow. Might not go down great in the midst of a pandemic.

There no way I can boot into recovery from a terminal command? For whatever reason, the Mac mini just won't accept input from my mechanical keyboard while it's booting.

On my phone I can perform a factory reset from within settings.app.

There is no way of doing this on a Mac.
 
Gjwilly said:
You need to have a wired keyboard or a USB keyboard, not bluetooth.
And if its a PC keyboard you need to hold down Ctrl-R or possibly Windows-Alt-R to get into Recovery.
Click to expand...

Tried the lot. It just straight up refuses to recognise the wired keyboard until I get to the login screen.

Weirdly, the I even managed to get it to register the recovery command from my bluetooth keyboard, but all I got to was a screen where a picture of the Apple Magic Mouse and keyboard kept flashing up telling me to turn them on. And there it wouldn't recognise the mechanical keyboard either.
 
I had a similar issue when I bought my Mac Mini a few weeks ago.
I purchased a cheap wired keyboard and mouse from Best Buy, just for this process of restoring. Now I keep it as a backup, too...
 
Hey @SirAnthonyHopkins

Have you tried or are you able to do a PRAM or SMC Reset? That might help the Mac to negotiate a connection to one of your keyboards so that you can access recovery?

You most likely won’t be able to input the startup key combinations seeing as your keyboard is not registering before login.

Also, if you’re able to use the keyboard to login to macOS, have you tried restarting from the desktop (rather than shutting down and powering on) and then accessing recovery?

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks!
 
OP:

If nothing else works, my recommendation:
- go on ebay
- go to "computers, tablets, & networking"
- enter "macally" in the search box
- sort by "lowest price first"
- choose a FULL SIZED WIRED keyboard (many for about $15).

This ought to be able to get you booted and running from a "cold start" and give you access to the "boot key combinations" you need.
(been using Macally keyboards for MANY years)
 
I was having the same issue except I had a proper Mac wired keyboard and a Kensington wired mouse. When I would boot into recovery mode it would give me the same flashing bluetooth mouse error. I was able to get past that by using a proper Mac wired mouse I borrowed from an iMac. It seems like it wants proper Mac/Apple parts to boot into recovery.
 
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NickNameless said:
I was having the same issue except I had a proper Mac wired keyboard and a Kensington wired mouse. When I would boot into recovery mode it would give me the same flashing bluetooth mouse error. I was able to get past that by using a proper Mac wired mouse I borrowed from an iMac. It seems like it wants proper Mac/Apple parts to boot into recovery.
Click to expand...
the mac mini bluetooth pref crated every boot, luckily i had that usb might mouse!
 
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