"find my mac" locked on a preowned laptop. help

[XJ-Tim]

Ok so im still a bit new to macs. I've worked on PCs quite a bit (dont hate ) but the MBP is too different for me to solve this on my own. A friend bought a broken MBP 13" with 10.7 Loin off craigslist for a good price. She asked me to repair it. The glass screen cover was cracked and the spacebar was missing . She also wanted me to wipe the HD and start with a fresh copy of Lion.

So the first thing i did was format "Erase" the Macintosh HD drive. (Journaled). Then i tried to reinstall Lion and it kept asking me for the AppleID and password, which i do have my own, but it said i didn't purchase 10.7 Lion and cant proceed. So then i tried to plug an ethernet cable into and and start it up while holding the "option" key. I chose the internet recovery option. It did its thing and took me to the recover HD partition screen (where you can choose between time machine, reinstall OSX, get help, and disk utility.) Instead of having an option to reinstall Lion, it now displayed Mountain Lion. I clicked it, then "Find My Mac" window appeared and the laptop started beeping, then shut down. I rebooted and all I get is a picture of a lock and a field to type a password.

So i called her and asked if she could call the guy who sold it to her and ask questions. He never picked up or replied.

Im assuming that this laptop was stolen. took it to apple and they weren't much help, it was not reported as stolen.

So, my question is, how do I get around this password. Shouldn't a HD format have deleted any security features? With no way to find the previous owner, im at a loss... She is willing to buy a new Hard drive to fix this problem as it would still be worth it. (im assuming that this security feature cannot be removed from the hard drive). will replacing the hard drive completely remove this feature?

thanks

 

[xxcysxx]

i thought i saw a page on this forums that discusses how to crack that password, a few days ago, i forgot its heading.
the description of the page content mention that you remove the hard drive from the mac and mount it on another computer, any computer doesn't have to be mac, and use a string of numbers from a file as a password for that lock you were talking about.

however, you mention that you formatted the hard drive, but you haven't write anything new on it yet. i suppose you can try to recover the key file by using some kind of recovery tool. you can search that up. in the mean time don't tamper with the hard drive if you want to recover the password.

furthermore, i think that lock feature lock the firmware on the machine and "maybe" the hard drive. so if you cant recover the key from the hard drive then you will have to find some other creative ways to unlock the firmware so it will let you install a new os on the hard drive.

 

[XJ-Tim]

aye its right here

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1438822/

the screen looks different, its not 4 squares, its one field which allows more than just 4 characters. But, im not sure if this method will work as i already formatted the hard drive.