So I bought a macbook pro on craigslist...

[honkeykong]

Did you try resetting the pram 3 times after removing a ram chip? Worst case scenario is install lion on a different macbook, and then throw the hard drive in yours.

Turns out that it didn't like it when I used the left option + command when doing the option + command + p + r to clear. Now there is no efi password.

Reinstalling Lion on a different HD now just to see what happens when I hop on the internet.

 

[mac-collector]

I only saw her name a second before it was locked. Everything before I upgraded was from the guy I bought it from.

What if you try repeating the steps? Maybe you could see her info again. And I don't know if returning it to the seller is a good idea. He will just find someone else to sell it to (if he is the thief?).

 

[iAppleseed]

Chances are astronomical but, I think someone guessed your serial number, registered it as their own and locked you, so you could give them your MBP. It's a sad world we live these days. You should talk to the one who sold you your MBP, and work things out. Who knows, maybe an employee of theirs were the one who registered your MBP.

 

[honkeykong]

Chances are astronomical but, I think someone guessed your serial number, registered it as their own and locked you, so you could give them your MBP. It's a sad world we live these days. You should talk to the one who sold you your MBP, and work things out. Who knows, maybe an employee of theirs were the one who registered your MBP.

I don't think it is that unexpected. I confused two letters as numbers because of scratches and they were both valid serials for this model. Well, to Apple registration at least.

 

[MOKHAN]

Glad it all worked out.

 

[Nlynn527]

I'm Near Allentown, PA. Not that it couldn't travel. Have you reported it stolen with the real police? I assume it would have hit when the PA state police looked up the serial number.

Any chance the guy you bought it from was from Reading?

 

[goRoostr]

Turns out that it didn't like it when I used the left option + command when doing the option + command + p + r to clear. Now there is no efi password.

Reinstalling Lion on a different HD now just to see what happens when I hop on the internet.

Reinstalling Lion on a different Hard Drive is your best bet. An experience I had with a customer: He sold his Macbook Pro 13" late 2011 to somebody on eBay. He completely reformatted the HD with a Lion USB drive, and did a fresh install. When the new owner started using the MB Pro, he could see them on his iCloud find my mac, and could locate them but didn't have any other options. He didn't know what to do, so he contacted Apple, because he no longer wanted to see it anymore in his iCloud, and couldn't remove it from his end. Took Apple 2 weeks to rectify the situation, and roughly explained to him that even with a full hard drive format, it will not overwrite a specific file( i forget what they called it) that has your iCloud/Find my Mac attributes contained in it. I thought it was attributed to the fact that iCloud is registered to your Mac address of your ethernet, but Apple blamed it on a different issue. So the best solution for you would probably put in a new hard drive. For others, always make sure to deactivate find my mac, and log out of iCloud before formatting your hard drive to sell your Macbook.

 

[honkeykong]

Any chance the guy you bought it from was from Reading?

Nope, not according to all of his information on facebook and twitter. Again though, it doesn't mean that he couldn't have been there. Best advice I can give is to report the serial to either your local or the state police. They ran the lookup in 15 minutes.

I would rather have my money back then the uncertainty that this could be remotely locked again.

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Reinstalling Lion on a different Hard Drive is your best bet. An experience I had with a customer: He sold his Macbook Pro 13" late 2011 to somebody on eBay. He completely reformatted the HD with a Lion USB drive, and did a fresh install. When the new owner started using the MB Pro, he could see them on his iCloud find my mac, and could locate them but didn't have any other options. He didn't know what to do, so he contacted Apple, because he no longer wanted to see it anymore in his iCloud, and couldn't remove it from his end. Took Apple 2 weeks to rectify the situation, and roughly explained to him that even with a full hard drive format, it will not overwrite a specific file( i forget what they called it) that has your iCloud/Find my Mac attributes contained in it. I thought it was attributed to the fact that iCloud is registered to your Mac address of your ethernet ID, but Apple blamed it on a different issue. So the best solution for you would probably put in a new hard drive. For others, always make sure to deactivate find my mac, and log out of iCloud before formatting your hard drive to sell your Macbook.

As soon as I bought it I ordered memory and an ssd so I put those in last night. So far so good...

 

[goRoostr]

And not to contradict myself, I believe its a combination of your ethernet mac address and the file on the original hard drive that causes the issue. If you put that original hard drive in a different Mac it shouldn't cause an issue either. Glad it all worked out for you.

 

[honkeykong]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone in this thread for all of your help and suggestions!

I mostly expected to get accused of stealing and hoped for a single helpful tip but it has been the exact opposite.

 

[adjr85]

Actually without the recovery partition the functions in find my device don't work. You can't turn on find my device in the iCloud settings without that partition.

And to add, when I did this on accident installing ML on my dev laptop, it now shows up as device unavailable when I look it up. Also can't turn it back on due to the option being greyed out in iCloud settings with the message saying the partition is missing.

[doublepost=1476379085][/doublepost]How do you remove the partition?

 

[look at my face]

Hey Guys,
I am experiencing the same problem. I bought a computer from someone that moved to a different country and i have no way to contact them. I have had a laptop laying around and it would be nice to get some use of it. When i turn it on, it asks for a passcode and the passcode i received was wrong.
should i try to put in a new disk and install a new lion processor, people have told me to replace the wifi chip? would a logic board change be necessary?

I spent 650 to buy this computer

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

Hasn't returned my texts or email. I'll keep trying, you never know. The name I saw before it locked was of a woman that didn't match his surname.

I know this doesn't help you financially, but have you done some internet sleuthing to see if the person whose name you you know mentioned on Facebook or twitter about getting a similar computer stolen or losing one?

 

[Altonkil]

It was working great with Snow Leopard and still had all of the guys info on it. A fresh install of Lion a few hours later locks it with the message, "Hey user something already has this registered" then it was remote locked.

I took it to the police and the serial number didn't come up in any stolen merchandise databases. They also called Apple and they said that it was not reported and suggested I go to an Apple store to see what they could do.

The answer is - nothing really. They were not allowed to notify the original owner. He couldn't reset the firmware password - He said the only way to bypass it would be to replace the logic board for $450. Then he also couldn't give me any assurance that whomever remote locked the system couldn't do it again.

So here I am with my $600 paperweight. Any suggestions? Anyone I can talk to at Apple to make progress with either contacting the original owner or getting this "soft" fixed?

Update: Turns out it was one of two laptops stolen but they didn't have the serial number for this one in the report. So the original owner lucked out and I hope they are able to turn it over to her soon.

[doublepost=1543953967][/doublepost]Stop making up stuff because i apple doesn’t keep any records of stolen iPhones iPods MacBooks any of their products so if the police really would have called them they would tell the police they don’t know the only was is check on line with websites that list stolen property

 

[Audit13]

Bumping 2.5 year-old thread?