HELP! totally locked out of laptop problems with clean installation

[Sossity]

I know I probably made a mistake, so I dont need to be reminded, but I am in a jam.

I bought a late 2013 retina macbook pro from ebay, and it came with some preinstalled software.

I want to install some of my own software, but I have no administrator privileges, I dont have the password, I have looked this up, and I am totally locked out of the machine, I can get to the desktop, but I cannot customize or make any changes.

I tried to email the seller about the password, and so far no reply.

So I have decided to do a clean install of maveriks on the machine. I thought I would make a bootable thumb drive to save the long download time of the os, I have a very slow internet connection.

I looked up some youtube videos of this, followed the instructions and made an installer on the thumb drive using the creatmedia method.

I then plug the drive into the laptop, press and hold the power and option keys, until I get a screen showing install maveriks, and untitled hard drive.

I select install maveriks, the screen then just goes grey with a circle with a bar through it and then the machine shuts down.

I then remove the thumb drive, and try powering up the machine holding the option and power keys, all I get is a hard drive icon image, I am not presented with other options, like internet recovery.

I then power down and power up holding command and r keys, this brings internet recovery, and am prompted for my wifi network name and password, I type these in and it is now stuck trying to find a network.

 

[Sossity]

nobody has any idea? its very weird, I have never not been able to do a clean install, on this one it is different the screen images are not the same.

The internal hard drive is just called untitled, and there does not seem to be any recovery partition or option when I press power and option, i just get the untitled HD to click on, and it just takes me to the desktop.

I have tried pressing power and command r, and this gets me to internet recovery, but this just takes forever to connect to and the laptop begins to get hot, I do not get the grey screen with os utilities, where I can erase format the hard drive and reinstall maveriks.

I just get a little spinning globe icon asking for my internet network name and password, I enter this and then it hangs trying to connect, and the laptop starts to run hot.

This is a late 2013 retina macbook pro.

 

[Nermal]

I select install maveriks, the screen then just goes grey with a circle with a bar through it and then the machine shuts down.

Did you get Mavericks directly from the App Store or from somewhere else? It sounds like you've ended up with an older version than your computer, which shouldn't happen if it's from the App Store.

Hold Option again, then hold Cmd-V while clicking the arrow to boot from the USB drive. This will put it into verbose mode so that you can see exactly what's going on (you'll want a camera).

Alternatively you might have more success with Yosemite, although it does mean sitting through another download.

 

[Sossity]

Did you get Mavericks directly from the App Store or from somewhere else? It sounds like you've ended up with an older version than your computer, which shouldn't happen if it's from the App Store.

Hold Option again, then hold Cmd-V while clicking the arrow to boot from the USB drive. This will put it into verbose mode so that you can see exactly what's going on (you'll want a camera).

Alternatively you might have more success with Yosemite, although it does mean sitting through another download.

Yes, this version of maveriks I downloaded as a free upgrade from the app store last fall 2013

Thanks for this, it basically said this version of os is not supported on this platform.

 

[Nermal]

Aha! As your MacBook is newer than your copy of Mavericks, it's getting confused. You'll need to either download the latest version of Mavericks (10.9.5) or go to Yosemite (10.10).

Either way, I'm afraid that it's another download.

The createinstallmedia tool will work with either version.

 

[Sossity]

Aha! As your MacBook is newer than your copy of Mavericks, it's getting confused. You'll need to either download the latest version of Mavericks (10.9.5) or go to Yosemite (10.10).

Either way, I'm afraid that it's another download.

The createinstallmedia tool will work with either version.

Another thing that I observed that was very odd compared to fresh installs on my other macs was, when I power and hold the option key, there is no recovery hd, only the macs internal hd untitled, I click on this and it just loads the desktop.

And another weird thing is when I do boot into recovery mode, I do not get the os utilites screen like on other macs, and as seen on youtube, where I can go to disk utility, and erase the macs hard drive and the reinstall.

Instead I get a little spinning globe with "internet recovery starting this may take awhile", of which I am prompted for my wifi network name and password. when I enter these it then seems to get stuck and the computer heats up.

 

[Weaselboy]

Another thing that I observed that was very odd compared to fresh installs on my other macs was, when I power and hold the option key, there is no recovery hd, only the macs internal hd untitled, I click on this and it just loads the desktop.

It sounds like you do not have a recovery partition on there.

Just to confirm, when you say it loads the desktop, other than the password issue, you are able to run Mavericks normally?

If you can get into Mavericks, launch Disk Utility and run verify disk and tell us if that shows any errors.

And another weird thing is when I do boot into recovery mode, I do not get the os utilites screen like on other macs, and as seen on youtube, where I can go to disk utility, and erase the macs hard drive and the reinstall.

Instead I get a little spinning globe with "internet recovery starting this may take awhile", of which I am prompted for my wifi network name and password. when I enter these it then seems to get stuck and the computer heats up.

Yeah... that for sure sounds like you have no recovery partition.

When you see this globe it is downloading the recovery utility from the Internet. About 650MB so it takes a bit. The fact it gets stuck and the machine gets hot is troubling. Even with a new, blank drive in there it should complete that recovery utility DL then launch you into the normal recovery screen.

 

[Sossity]

Ran disk utility, says volume appears to be ok. Yes, I am able to use the computer, although, I just tried to update mavericks on it, one update required a restart, but it got stuck or hung on the setting up Mac screen.

I also keep getting a message, every time I make changes to the Mac, "os wants to use local items keychain" with a box for a password or cancel, I hit cancel and move on.

I do have a very slow dsl Internet connection, if that has any affect, I have been doing all this over wifi

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Aha! As your MacBook is newer than your copy of Mavericks, it's getting confused. You'll need to either download the latest version of Mavericks (10.9.5) or go to Yosemite (10.10).

Either way, I'm afraid that it's another download.

The createinstallmedia tool will work with either version.

Just attempted a download from the app store on the laptop, and I just get a message saying, download failed.

Opened up the more details page in AppStore hit download again and it seems to be working now.

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It sounds like you do not have a recovery partition on there.

Just to confirm, when you say it loads the desktop, other than the password issue, you are able to run Mavericks normally?

If you can get into Mavericks, launch Disk Utility and run verify disk and tell us if that shows any errors.



Yeah... that for sure sounds like you have no recovery partition.

When you see this globe it is downloading the recovery utility from the Internet. About 650MB so it takes a bit. The fact it gets stuck and the machine gets hot is troubling. Even with a new, blank drive in there it should complete that recovery utility DL then launch you into the normal recovery screen.

Is there any way to het a recovery partition? get the computer to a more normal state?

I just want this computer to start acting normal like my others, I am going to download and try a fresh install of Yosemite.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there any way to het a recovery partition? get the computer to a more normal state?

I just want this computer to start acting normal like my others, I am going to download and try a fresh install of Yosemite.

Yes, there are utilities that will create a recovery partition, but that requires a full DL of the installer, so you may as well just DL and do a clean install of Yosemite at this point. Just follow this guide.

 

[Sossity]

I finally got something to work, I will keep my fingers crossed, I made a boot drive of Yosemotie and installed it, for the first time this way got me into os utilities so I could erase the hard drive.

thanks all for the input, I am cautiously optimistic.

 

[inscrewtable]

If all you needed was the password and it was an ebay and therefore paypal transaction, I find that the surest way to get a response from a seller is to open a dispute which will freeze the funds out of their account. That usually gets their attention pretty quickly.

 

[Nermal]

If all you needed was the password and it was an ebay and therefore paypal transaction, I find that the surest way to get a response from a seller is to open a dispute which will freeze the funds out of their account. That usually gets their attention pretty quickly.

Even then, it's a good idea to wipe and reinstall because you never know what might be lurking on a used machine.

 

[Sossity]

Well so far so good, I contacted the seller about the lack of recovery partition, and they told me the newer macbooks do not have a recovery partition, and they just use internet recovery, like the spinning globe thing I got upon powering and command r.

I have it now set up all in my name with Yosemite.

 

[Weaselboy]

Well so far so good, I contacted the seller about the lack of recovery partition, and they told me the newer macbooks do not have a recovery partition, and they just use internet recovery, like the spinning globe thing I got upon powering and command r.

I have it now set up all in my name with Yosemite.

The seller is mistaken. There is a recovery partition as well as Internet recovery on all newer Macs.

Glad you got all fixed up.

 

[inscrewtable]

Even then, it's a good idea to wipe and reinstall because you never know what might be lurking on a used machine.

Absolutely, and it's exactly what I do in every machine I set up.

 

[Sossity]

When I did the new installation, did the os make a new recovery partition when I reintalled?

 

[poiihy]

When I did the new installation, did the os make a new recovery partition when I reintalled?

Yes, OS installer also sets up a recovery partition.

 

[Weaselboy]

When I did the new installation, did the os make a new recovery partition when I reintalled?

Yes. If you enter the command below in Terminal you should see a hidden 650MB recovery partition listed there.

diskutil list

Just to clarify though, this is not like some Windows recovery systems where the whole OS is on there. This is just a small utility that allows you to troubleshoot and install the OS. The OS itself is about another 5GB download from within the utility.