To provide context, my grandad has been recently admitted to a dementia home, and has allowed us to take home his Apple devices. He knows the password to his Mac Pro, yet not to his MacBook Pro.
I am currently logged in as a guest user on this 2012 MacBook Pro and I can’t enter reboot mode without a username and a password. Is there any way I can factory reset this without that?
You have to be quick with Command + R to catch the window of opportunity. Really quick ... try again, try several times. If that fails try a wired USB keyboard. It does work, but the timing can be a bit frustrating.
If you got to the point where you can select "Reinstall OS" ... what happens exactly? Details, exact wording of error messages as details matter. "Doesn't work" alone conveys no usable information.
"Have I accidentally deleted the operating system?"
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Not necessarily. If when you start the Mac normally you get a login screen, the OS is present. If you get an error screen, you need to show that.
What the message is saying is just what you see, an error has occurred and the system can't proceed. Why? No idea as many things can cause that.
If it were my Mac, I'd cut to the chase, wipe the drive and install the OS. I'd then either use one of my several backups to restore data or maybe just start from scratch again. But that's just me. You may not have backups and/or just don't want to chance a disk wipe.
The Mac is eleven years old and you likely have no idea of any problems it was having before you got it. It's a personal decision as to how much effort you want to put in to resurrect and old obsolete device. If you have no backups and want the data on it, I can certainly understand trying to "get it back".
I suggest you wait for others to respond with other ideas.
In essence you've forgotten the password. Here's Apple guidance: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860
Okay! I restarted it and held command + R. Yet now it is just showing a screen called OS X utilities, and I’ve tried to click reinstall OS X but it doesnt work.
Have I accidentally deleted the operating system? 🤣
Okay thank you for your help any how’s! I think I’m going to try and instal OS X Yosemite onto a USB and install it. :)
That's exactly what I'd do. Good luck. Come on back if you have problems.
How to factory reset a 2012 MacBook Pro without a password.
