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Restoring my iMac to Mavericks

AdamA9

AdamA9

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 2, 2010
1,232
355
Hi guys.

Hope this is the right place to put this. I've searched Google all morning and seem to get different answers. I want some clarification about restoring my iMac.

I have a late 2009 21" iMac that I'm going to give to my sister. I think I had Lion on it when I bought it, but have over the years added to the OS, and it's currently up-to-date with 10.9.2 so I'd like to restore it to a factory version of this.

How do I do this? Everything is backed up and moved onto my MacBook so I'm happy to just wipe the whole computer. But I've read that holding command+R will restore it, but that does it to Lion.

How can I restore my iMac to the current version of OS?

Many thanks
Adam
 
Your Late 2009 iMac came with Snow Leopard, at least when new (not Lion)
It is too old for the Internet Recovery feature.

Here's how you can do a clean reinstall of Mavericks.
Download the 10.9.2 installer, which you can get through your App Store.
Do NOT run that installer, and Quit it when it automatically launches after the download. Make a bootable flash drive for that installer. You can use any of the available methods to do that, or I like the DiskMakerX app, which does that very neatly. I like getting a new 8 GB USB thumb drive, just for the installer. You can find those easily for less than $10. DiskMakerX is here: http://diskmakerx.com
With that flash drive built, you'll have a "permanent" method to reinstall Mavericks.
Boot to that flash drive.
Run Disk Utility from the installer choices, and erase the hard drive.
Quit Disk Utility, and run Reinstall OSX. The main advantage is you don't need an internet connection just to install Mavericks, and the install will likely be much quicker - you don't need to wait for a download.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply.

FWIW I think I might have the internet installer, these are the options I get when I cmd+R



If I can avoid the hassle of the thumb drive I'd like to do that.
 
AdamA9 said:
Hi, thanks for the reply.

FWIW I think I might have the internet installer, these are the options I get when I cmd+R

If I can avoid the hassle of the thumb drive I'd like to do that.
Click to expand...

There is no need at all to go with the thumb drive.

Your 2009 would not have Internet Recovery, but since you have the Mavs recovery partition on your hard drive you can just use that in the same way.

From that recovery screen you posted open Disk Utility and select Macintosh HD then in the erase tab just erase that partition to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click Reinstall OS X and that will download the OS over the Internet and install it. At the end after a restart it will start the setup assistant. You can just power down from there and your sister will get that setup assistant when she starts the iMac the first time.

This will leave nothing but the OS on the machine and your data will be gone.
 
Thanks both.

Followed this advice and have about a minute left of the install of Mavericks. I had to use my Apple ID and password to install Mavericks. Assume it will be no problem for my sister to set this up all in her name with her Apple ID when she takes it?

Also, there's no shutdown option now it's finished. Assume it's okay to power down with the button?
 
AdamA9 said:
Thanks both.

Followed this advice and have about a minute left of the install of Mavericks. I had to use my Apple ID and password to install Mavericks. Assume it will be no problem for my sister to set this up all in her name with her Apple ID when she takes it?

Also, there's no shutdown option now it's finished. Assume it's okay to power down with the button?
Click to expand...

That is because you used your AppleID to "purchase" Mavericks. It will only be an issue if she ever decides to wipe and reinstall like you just did. I would tell her to login to the App Store once she gets setup and purchase Mavs under her AppleID then cancel the download. That way she can get it under her AppleID if she ever needs to.

Yep... just power down.
 
Weaselboy said:
That is because you used your AppleID to "purchase" Mavericks. It will only be an issue if she ever decides to wipe and reinstall like you just did. I would tell her to login to the App Store once she gets setup and purchase Mavs under her AppleID then cancel the download. That way she can get it under her AppleID if she ever needs to.

Yep... just power down.
Click to expand...

Nice one thanks. Well I guess when the next OS comes out she can purchase that and then it'll all be tied to her name.

Thanks for the help. All sorted now.
 
Restoration Problems

I had some sort of crash and on advice of Support, shut the system down, then held 'ctrl+R' during startup to get to the recovery feature. I then 'restored' a Time Machine backup from prior to my 'crash'. Took over 2 hours, but got the unit running. Unfortunatley, a lot of my Dock icons do not respond to clicking on them. I did finally get Safari and Mail to work, but other files just do not respond, e.g., Contacts, Calendar etc., simply do not open. Any ideas or suggestions?
 
Remove from the Dock the icons that do not work, then launch Contacts from the Applications folder by double-clicking on it, then right-click on the "new" icon, "Options", "Keep in Dock".

Do the same for the other applications.
 
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