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I just bought a used 2010 MacBook Air and when I went to reformat the drive and reload the operating system, everything in Disk Utility was in Japanese. Is there anything that can be done to change it to english.
 

chscag

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When you reinstall the operating system it should ask you for language and locale. Did you miss that?
 
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It did not ask me to select a language. I am not sure why. I have done this many many times before(at least a couple hundred). sometimes it will ask for a language, sometimes not, but it has never given me anything other than english.
 

pigoo3

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It did not ask me to select a language. I am not sure why. I have done this many many times before(at least a couple hundred). sometimes it will ask for a language, sometimes not, but it has never given me anything other than english.

Just a thought. Maybe the OS installer defaults to the last language that was installed. So if the Japanese language was last installed language...maybe that's what it chooses the next time. There may even be an "options" choice somewhere to change things before the installer starts.

If the computer is still in Japanese...you can go to:

- "System Preferences"
- Then choose "Language & Text" (it will have an icon that looks like the United Nations Flag)
- Language tab (first tab on the left).
- Then choose English.

I understand that much of this may be in Japanese...that's why I added the extra "visual" info to help find things.:)

Hope this helps,

- Nick
 
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Maybe this was Snow Leopard on a DVD. Did Snow Leopard installs offer this language choice?
 

chscag

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Choice of language is offered on all Apple devices when you first turn them on and when doing a clean install. After installing iOS 8 on my iPhone, the first time it booted I was offered a choice of language.
 
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There you go Charlie.

Seems ever so long since I used an install DVD!!!!!
 

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