Used 2008 iMac Help Please?

[cedunn21]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to Mac.. I have used them but never really had to restore/etc..

My problem is I recently got a used 2008 iMac 2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo
and it has Lion installed. I did not receive any restore dvds.

When i received the iMac is still had the previous owners information and files
on it and I would like to basically delete all of their information and just have a new install of lion. I don't care about any of the files on the computer as they are not mine.

I do know you can hold COMMAND + R at startup to get into recovery but I'm not sure what to do from there and I don't want to do this blindly and screw something up.

I would prefer to not have to re-purchase lion as it was already on the computer when i purchased. If thats possible

Any help would be greatly appreciated/of if you could direct me to some information on how to do this would be awesome!

Thanks!
Eric

 

[marzer]

If you did not receive the install disks you will want to be careful about reloading the machine. Without those disks you will not be able to reinstall the iLife apps that came with the computer.

Options to consider:

- Contact the individual and ask if they can locate the original disks to send to you.

- Contact Apple support and see if they can ship you replacement disks (don't know the associated cost but it will contain Leopard not Lion) but at least you will have the disks incl. a version of iLife.

- If you have admin access, delete the unwanted profiles and leave the OS and existing programs intact.

- You could do try the CMD+R (boot the restore partition), erase the disk using Disk Utility and then reinstall Lion, as long as you're comfortable losing the iLife apps.

The thing about Lion is that as a Mac App store purchase, it is associated with a apple ID not a machine, in this case the previous owner. So you would have to purchase it under your Apple ID to own an original copy. And you need to have at least SL to purchase Lion from the App store.

 

[rkaufmann87]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to Mac.. I have used them but never really had to restore/etc..

My problem is I recently got a used 2008 iMac 2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo
and it has Lion installed. I did not receive any restore dvds.

When i received the iMac is still had the previous owners information and files
on it and I would like to basically delete all of their information and just have a new install of lion. I don't care about any of the files on the computer as they are not mine.

I do know you can hold COMMAND + R at startup to get into recovery but I'm not sure what to do from there and I don't want to do this blindly and screw something up.

I would prefer to not have to re-purchase lion as it was already on the computer when i purchased. If thats possible

Any help would be greatly appreciated/of if you could direct me to some information on how to do this would be awesome!

Thanks!
Eric

As you probably know there is no such thing as install discs for Lion. Also and even more importantly you have an illegal license of Lion. The SLA for Lion does not allow the resale of Lion when accompanied with a machine that did not originally have Lion on it. This is because the purchase is tied to the previous owner's AppleID. In order for you to eliminate the previous owners information you will need to get both a Snow Leopard install DVD and you will need to purchase Lion.

Sorry but thats the only alternative. You should contact the seller if you can and request the Snow Leopard upgrade DVD and then you can do an Erase and Install of SL and then you will need to purchase Lion on your own. If the seller will not or cannot supply the SL upgrade DVD you will need to buy that in addition to the Lion upgrade.

When you buy a used machine unfortunately you can fall into traps, while it's a moot point now when you can I'd recommend buying an Apple Refurbished machine directly from Apple if you are trying to save money.

 

[cedunn21]

First, Thanks for the input. I didn't intend on getting into a problem like this I normally buy new but at 450.00 for a second iMac for the home I couldn't pass the offer up.

Unfortunately I cannot get the original disks so I'm stuck with downgrading..etc...

Anyways...

So if I am reading right I could purchase http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A from Apple (SnowLep Upgrade Disk for 29.99)

I can then use it to erase/reformat the hard drive with Utilities.. and then do a clean install of SL

then I would need to purchase Lion from the AppStore as another upgrade to link to to my Apple ID and that should take care of it?

Thanks again!
Eric