Which version of Snow Leopard do you have installed? If you are on 10.6.8 you
would be able to do a clean install of Yosemite if your computer is able to run
it. In that case you would not need the snow leopard DVD. If you are on a
version earlier than 10.6.8 then your best choice would be to just boot from
the DVD, use disk utility to erase your drive, and follow the instructions to
reinstall the system. That would allow you to set your own password, which
would make it possible for you to update your computer to 10.6.8, and then
upgrade to Yosemite.
Obviously before doing any of this you should copy any important information or
files in that computer to an external drive. Otherwise you will just lose
everything.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 3, 2015, at 10:01 AM, Singing Sparrow <sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If i look and i have the dvd what would be the steps to cleanly do an install
removing everything and making sure that nothing is left behind?
On 9/3/2015 2:50 AM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
All the solutions I know of, given that you don't have the install cds or
dvd that came with it, involve booting into safe mood, where you have to
type several lines without any feedback as voiceover doesn't work. Even if
you either erase the current users and reset it to run the setup assistant
again, or just reset the password for a user, then you have to also fix or
delete and restart building the keychain. I wouldn't recommend this to
anybody unless he/she had excellent typing skills that don't need audible
feedback and had experience with the Mac, especially using terminal. If I
was right there to guide step-by-step or could do it myself, I might do this
and actually have done it on a Mac on one occasion. But honestly, even if
doing this works, you will not have securely erased this other person's
information. What really needs to happen is for you to completely erase and
reinstall your system. The only way I know of for you to do this would be to
purchase the snow leopard dvd from the Apple Store (not available in the app
store; you need to buy a physical product). You would bring up the dvd for
install which can be explained in more detail once you are doing it but go
into disk utility on the dvd and totally erase your drive first. Then you
would do a clean install via the dvd and would set up your own user
information. Long-term, I think this would be the best solution though I can
understand that you would like a quick fix so you can go ahead and install
Adobe flash player and get on with life, but I honestly think this approach
would benefit you most in the long run.
As for installing Yosemite, first you would need to know if you meet all the
requirements for running Yosemite and have enough memory to make it a
positive experience; I would tend to recommend more memory than the minimum
requirement especially with running voiceover. But again, trying to install
it over your Snow Leopard install is going to require the password for the
administrator. Starting over again from scratch may seem like a daunting
undertaking, but I think that long-term it would prove to be a better choice
than trying to deal with a system that was given to you with somebody else's
information and setup already on it. Unfortunately, people who want to make
money, or want to help other people, or both, do this way too often: hand on
a computer without fully erasing and reinstalling a clean system and without
even remembering and passing on passwords if for some reason it cannot be
reinstalled by the giver/seller. It's often a very well-intentioned action,
but it often makes things very difficult for a new user and may even end up
discouraging that user from trying to use a Mac.
Did you post here what your Mac's model is, amount of memory, etc. It's very
possible you could and should eventually install Yosemite but you would want
to know that your system is compatible.
If you need help doing an install and don't already have somebody to help
you, and live in the U.S. and could work over the phone, I would be glad to
help you. You would be welcome to email me offlist and we could explore
whether this would be doable. There are probably others on the list who
would do the same and if you feel that your best course is to do this as
independently as possible, I know that people on the list will be glad to
continue assisting you via the list. I actually know nothing about your
background and experience and don't at all intend to underestimate your
knowledge and work in this area; i hope my offer does not sound like I am
doing this.
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface
at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage.
http://www.icanworkthisthing.com
Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.
//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to
macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web
interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
