Comments on: How to “reset” a Mac OS X installation

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:04:16 +0000

Thank you for the clear post and pointer to the Apple forums. All the steps worked.

By: Macs R We

Macs R We — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:33 +0000

Color me unimpressed with the Lion instructions at Apple Discussions. I followed them to the letter (I also deleted the user’s homedir, which wasn’t mentioned), only to be told upon reboot when I started the file migration that I was trying to load a user ID that already existed. Happily, it gave me the choice of creating a new user or blowing away the old one, so that’s what I did.

From further study of the Apple note on the subject, it looks like simply substituting one comment in the old Snow Lion regimen would have made this all work:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

instead of com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist — I only had one machine to upgrade, so I haven’t yet tried that.

By: Daniel Mettler

Daniel Mettler — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:11:28 +0000

Thanks for the hint, Adam! Couldn’t verify this myself yet, so just placed a note about Lion as step 0 for now.

By: Daniel Mettler

Daniel Mettler — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:10:19 +0000

Thanks for the note. See Adam’s comment below or check Mark’s comment at Apple forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15701551#15701551

Please note that I couldn’t verify Mark’s procedure myself yet, so please use with care (feedback welcome!). I thus just introduced a step 0 for now (will integrate the hints once I get enough confirmations that Mark’s solution is correct and recommended).

By: Daniel Mettler

Daniel Mettler — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:04:00 +0000

Rebooting isn’t strictly necessary – just to verify the procedure worked.

I’ve clarified this now, thanks for the feedback!

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:44:02 +0000

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3198776?start=0&tstart=0

Delete the users BEFORE rebooting into single user mode.Hamilton aboked

By: adrien

adrien — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:08:48 +0000

Not working with 10.7 Lion.

So far the dscl command is failing, error message about it not being able to stat the plist file (sorry for not copy-pasting the error message here :) This is booting into single user mode, not using the restore partition…

Also, any idea about handing off an install of Lion which may (or may not) have your AppStore ID signature stored somewhere? Also, the restore partition seems to remember my WiFi network *and* password, which is also not so great if you’re selling the computer on…

By: David Rostenne

David Rostenne — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:41:02 +0000

The only thing that confused me is the reboot at the end.. isn’t the whole point to shut it down and hand it off to the new owner?
Cheers,
Dave

By: Forever

Forever — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:34:46 +0000

I have a macbook pro that has the same problen and all u have said does not work turn on comes to the screen will not load it is a 2008 with tiger on it thats strange put it does its 10.4. my osx has gotten broken now I dont no what to do the permission were changed while I was out of the country by my brother I installed some programs on it and when shutdown and next day went to load would not load what can I do. Please can you respond as soon as you can to this post thanks so much I just love my Macboiok

By: mcmaddog

mcmaddog — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:28:02 +0000

schlivo

since you didn’t include it in your reply I’m assuming you left off the ‘ &’ and the end of the command. That keeps the DirectoryService daemon running in the background while you issue the remaining commands.