Pawn shop Mini

[dshinnick]

Hey all-

Just bought a mid-2010 Mini, with wireless keyboard and mouse, for $225, out the door. Pretty pleased with the deal. Seems to work fine.

But, I'm locked out of administrative tasks because I don't know the user's password. More important, I'd like to do a format and clean install. I have the retail version of SL, which works fine on my two MB's, but the Mini rejects it. I'm going to want to upgrade to ML when it comes out. I wouldn't mind buying something if necessary, though, of course, free is better. Any thoughts on how to proceed?

thanks-
Dave

 

[flatfoot]

Your retail SL DVD is probably 10.6(.0). The mid 2010 minis came with 10.6.3, i.e. your DVD is missing some drivers the mini needs.

Either use Lion or get a 10.6.3 retail disc from eBay.

If your retail SL is 10.6.3, the DVD drive might be faulty. Any USB DVD drive will work.

 

[dshinnick]

Just checked my SL disk. It is 10.6. So how do I get Lion? DVD from an Apple store? And can I get *any* 10.6.3 disk from ebay, or does it have to be somehow Mini-specific? Don't want to get the wrong thing.

 

[flatfoot]

Just checked my SL disk. It is 10.6. So how do I get Lion? DVD from an Apple store? And can I get *any* 10.6.3 disk from ebay, or does it have to be somehow Mini-specific? Don't want to get the wrong thing.

Any 10.6.3 retail disc (white, not grey) will work.

To get Lion, go to the App Store (should be there if you are running at least 10.6.6) on one of your MacBooks and purchase it. You are allowed to install that copy on all of your Macs.

There's no need to use Lion over Snow Leopard, so if you can get the retail 10.6.3 disc cheaper than the Lion download, go with it.

----------

WAIT! Just got an idea.

Not sure if this works:

Connect the mini to your MacBook via FireWire and start up the mini in Target Disk mode (holding "T" at boot).
Now the minis HDD should be displayed as an external drive on your MacBook.

Format the mini HDD

Insert the SL DVD into your MacBook and install to the mini.

Download the 10.6.8 Combo update from Apple's website and install it this way, too.

I have no way right now to confirm that this works, but it should. If not, you break nothing trying. You can do a fresh install with 10.6.3 or Lion if it fails, too.

 

[ivnj]

Or call apple and give them your serial number. They will order you the right replacement discs.

 

[dshinnick]

Thanks so much for the info. I don't think I have a firewire cable; I'll have to check. Someone else mentioned that as a possibility too, so I'll definitely give it a try if I can. If not, I'll get an SL disk somewhere, then move to ML when I can.

thanks again

 

[tom vilsack]

This should work...do a clean install of sl 10.6 on one of your macbooks...then do all the updates...then install carbon copy,and clone to external usb harddrive or usb stick (would have to be at least 16 gig size...as 8 gig would be too small)...now connect either harddrive or stick to mini and boot holding down option key and select that drive to boot from...then once booted go to disk utilities and wipe harddrive on mini (zero data best) then once that is done,open carbon copy software and clone from usb harddrive or stick to mini...reboot

http://www.bombich.com/index.html

 

[dshinnick]

That worked, Tom! I'm now on 10.6.8 on the Mini, logged in as me, and now just waiting for ML. Thanks for saving me $30! Lunch is on me....



dave