I recently got a Mac mini from the late 2010s, but I'm stuck because I can only access one of the user accounts and not the admin. I tried booting into recovery mode by pressing Command + R, but it didn't work for me. I can get into a terminal-like interface with Command + S, but I'm unsure how to proceed from there to perform a factory reset. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to wipe this Mac?
2 Answers
The first thing to check is whether you can control-boot into recovery mode. If you hold the power button and the Command + R keys together right at startup, that should work. If that's not happening, getting access to a bootable USB installer as mentioned might be your best bet.
Have you tried booting into Internet Recovery? That could help you reset everything. Just a heads up, Apple needs to still support your Mac model with a compatible version for it to work. If that doesn't work, you might need to create a bootable installer and reinstall macOS from there. Check out Apple's support page on how to do that!
Yeah, creating a bootable installer is usually the best way if recovery options fail. Just remember to have a USB drive that's at least 16 GB ready for that.