How do I enable a disabled iMac I bought secondhand?

Marcus Concernicus.

New member
Joined
Mar 10, 2023
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I bought an iMac at a Salvation Army. When I tried to boot it up the screen read… disabled.
is there a way to reverse this, or did I just buy a 40$ paperweight?
 

Rod


Joined
Jun 12, 2011
Messages
9,703
Reaction score
1,892
Points
113
Location
Melbourne, Australia and Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Your Mac's Specs
2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
Marcus, not knowing which model you have makes helping you a little more difficult. Check for a serial number on the back or base; Identify your iMac model
The model/year will tell us what operating system the device can run and to a degree if it's worth the effort.

You may be able to boot into the recovery partition, turn on holding Command + R keys. If so then it may be possible to use Internet Recovery after erasing the HD.

What exactly do you see when you boot the device? Eg, Apple icon on black bacground/white background, progress bar, login screen with empty dialogue boxes. When does the "disabled" notification appear?

Not knowing if/how this iMac has been disabled my first thought would be to try booting it from a different bootable source such as a bootable USB macOS installer on a thumb drive. You can make one if you have other Macs or buy one on Amazon but first we need to know which macOS will work. If it can be booted this way it may be possible to erase the internal drive along with its lockdown but if it is some sort of firmware, or hardware lock you may be out of luck.
 
Last edited:

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top