how do I wipe the system and start over?

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As my name states I am mac stupid, I know next to nothing about them. My co-worker that knew about them left and now I am trying to figure them out. Because I know nothing please be specific with your answers.

So we replaced 3 macs with the new dual quad core mac pros running the latest OS (I think it is Leopard) and the ones we got back I now have to deploy to other users. I think these are running Tiger. What I need to do is clean them up before I deploy them. If this was a PC I would just format the hard drive and reinstall the OS but because they are macs I do not know how to do this. I have looked but cannot find any cds for them that I could boot off of, so I assume that the files to restore the system to factory specs are somewhere on the hard drive, but how do I access them?

Please anyone tell me how this can be done.
 
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You can do the same thing with Macs. Just pop in the install/restore disc, hold the C key, and when setup begins, choose Erase and Install.
 

cwa107


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Another idea would be to create a new Administrator account (System Preferences => Accounts => click the + sign => Choose Administrator in the top field and fill the rest out however you like. Then, log in with the new account and delete the others. Although you won't have a completely clean install, all of the user-specific nonsense would be obliterated and you basically have it as clean as it needs to be.

Note that Mac OS X doesn't have a registry like Windows does, so by removing the other, old user accounts, you're essentially getting rid of the droppings of the old users. The same would not be true of Windows XP and previous versions where the regisry and centralized Program Files directories would still be littered with user-specific junk.

This is part of the beauty of running a *nix-based OS that was designed to never need to be reinstalled.
 
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Thanks for the help everyone. I wiped out the old user accounts but it did not fix the issues going on with these Macs. I will see if I can order restore disks.

P.S. I think I found the OS version I think it is 10.4.11, does that sound right?
 

cwa107


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Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Thanks for the help everyone. I wiped out the old user accounts but it did not fix the issues going on with these Macs. I will see if I can order restore disks.

P.S. I think I found the OS version I think it is 10.4.11, does that sound right?

What are the issues going on with your Macs? Maybe we can help from that angle?
 

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