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- #HOW TO RESTORE MAC OS X LION TO FACTORY SETTINGS WITHOUT CD HOW TO#
- #HOW TO RESTORE MAC OS X LION TO FACTORY SETTINGS WITHOUT CD INSTALL#
Select the "Erase Tab," set the "Format:" value to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and then click the "Erase" button. Restart the iMac after the restore drive is completed and hold the "Command-R" keys until the boot selector appears.Ĭhoose the flash drive from the boot selector, open the "Disk Utility" and select the iMac's hard drive. For OS X Mavericks (10.9), Mountain Lion (10.8), and Lion (10.7) with Recovery Mode: Boot into the Mac OS X boot loader menu by holding down the. Select the "Image." button, then locate and choose the "InstallESD.dmg" file.Ĭlick "Restore" to create the restoration drive. Resetting a forgotten Mac password is pretty easy if you have an installer disk, drive, or the recovery partition handy, which method you use here will depend on the version of OS X the Mac is running.
#HOW TO RESTORE MAC OS X LION TO FACTORY SETTINGS WITHOUT CD INSTALL#
Open the "Disk Utility" within the Utilities folder under Applications and connect the USB flash drive to one of the ports located on the back side of the iMac.Ĭhoose the flash drive from the left-side tree display and then click the "Burn" icon. The Windows XP CD used to install the OS is the Microsoft-preferred method for performing a factory reset, but you still have options if you're not a CD-ROM collector. Expand the "Show Package Contents" folder.Ĭopy and paste the "InstallESD.dmg" file to an easily accessible location on the iMac hard drive. Control-click on the "Install Mac OS X" icon and choose the "Show Package Contents" icon. Open the "Applications" directory in Finder.
#HOW TO RESTORE MAC OS X LION TO FACTORY SETTINGS WITHOUT CD HOW TO#
How to Factory Reset an iMac Via Bootable USB Recovery Driveĭownload the version of Mac OS X the iMac is running from the App Store. However, now that it has been so many years I feel like I want to restore it to factory settings, essentially I want to make it like I just opened it up from the box.
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Select "Reinstall OS X" from the menu, click the "Continue" button and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the OS installation process on your clean hard drive. Pop in the Mac OS X Install CD/DVD that your friend gave you with the computer, boot from the CD by holding down the c key as the computer starts up, and follow the on-screen prompts to do an 'Erase and Install.' H. I have a PowerBook G4 that is about 3 1/2 years old - my first Mac ever, I got it for college. Select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" from the "Format:" drop menu and enter a name for the hard drive in the "Name:" text entry field.Ĭlick "Erase." to clear all of the hard drive's contents.Ĭhoose the "Quit Disk Utility" option to exit the disk formatting tool. Select the hard drive on which Mac OS X is installed from the tree list on the left side of the window. Choose the "Disk Utility" option from the list and click "Continue."