Trying to erase my hard drive on my Mac mini A1283

[Dako525]

Please help,i'm trying to erase my hard drive on my Mac mini model # A1283 and start it as new again . My kids have messed around with this computer so much that it is running horrible I have nothing on it that I need to save It's just the house computer. I went to disk utilities but it won't allow me to click the erase button. I don't know where the disk is that I was supposed to save and all I have is the computer can someone show me how to erase the hard drive so I can start the computer as new again.

 

[ActionableMango]

Please help,i'm trying to erase my hard drive on my Mac mini model # A1283 and start it as new again . My kids have messed around with this computer so much that it is running horrible I have nothing on it that I need to save It's just the house computer. I went to disk utilities but it won't allow me to click the erase button. I don't know where the disk is that I was supposed to save and all I have is the computer can someone show me how to erase the hard drive so I can start the computer as new again.

Restart your mini and hold down Command+R during boot up. This will boot the recovery partition where you can do a new install of OS X.

 

[Dako525]

Restart your mini and hold down Command+R during boot up. This will boot the recovery partition where you can do a new install of OS X.

I'll try this now thank you very much for taking your time to answer my question

 

[Dako525]

Restart your mini and hold down Command+R during boot up. This will boot the recovery partition where you can do a new install of OS X.

Can I just reinstall Yosemite or do I need to go into disk utility first to erase the disk?

 

[ActionableMango]

Can I just reinstall Yosemite or do I need to go into disk utility first to erase the disk?

It sounds like your purpose is to do a clean install. Boot to the recovery partition, use Disk Utility to wipe the drive, then install Yosemite. You will have a clean install as new.

 

[Dako525]

It's saying that I need at least 2 gigs of memory to run Yosemite I know how to open the case to the Mac mini does anyone know what type of memory card I need to buy from Amozon to run the computer at its max memory? Also how can I install maverick for the time being

 

[ActionableMango]

It's saying that I need at least 2 gigs of memory to run Yosemite I know how to open the case to the Mac mini does anyone know what type of memory card I need to buy from Amozon to run the computer at its max memory?

You need a DDR3-1066MHz 204 PIN SODIMM. I recommend these guys, as they really know Macs well:
http://www.datamemorysystems.com/ap...b463ll/amb464ll/a-early-2009-memory-upgrades/

If your firmware is up to date, you can install up to 8GB. If you don't do Apple's updates, you might have an older firmware which can support up to 4GB.

Also how can I install maverick for the time being

I don't understand, what operating system are you running? The recovery partition is created by whatever version of OS X that you last installed, and should only be able to reinstall that version. So if you have Mavericks currently installed, the recovery partition should reinstall Mavericks.