Used MacBook Pro wont factory reset

[Troy.]

Earlier today I went to a collage yard sale fundraiser and bought a used mac. Apparently the collage student left all of their stuff still on the computer. Anyway when I tried the guides online to factory reset (command and R) it didnt work upon rebooting. I tried a few other key variants and nothing worked.

It is a MacBookPro8,1 with 10.6.8

 

[JohnDS]

Command-R will only work with OS 10.7 or newer. See if you can download and upgrade to El Capitan:

http://www.apple.com/ca/osx/how-to-upgrade/

 

[pastrychef]

Try to make a USB flash drive installer and reinstall with that.

 

[JohnDS]

Assuming that you know the Admin password for the computer, go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Users and Groups and create a new Administrative User.

Log out of the current user and log back in as the new user. Then in Users and Groups, delete the old users and its home folder.

 

[chscag]

Earlier today I went to a collage yard sale fundraiser and bought a used mac. Apparently the collage student left all of their stuff still on the computer. Anyway when I tried the guides online to factory reset (command and R) it didnt work upon rebooting. I tried a few other key variants and nothing worked.

It is a MacBookPro8,1 with 10.6.8

My recommendation is to buy a Snow Leopard DVD from Apple ($19.99), boot the machine with it and wipe it clean. Install Snow Leopard, then update it. Afterward, you can decide if you wish to update OS X any further.