Failed transfer of ownership of Apple Silicon Mac Mini!

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Level 1

9 points

Failed transfer of ownership of Apple Silicon Mac Mini!

My son gave me his Apple Silicon Mac Mini, but regardless of how we format partitions or configure it, it always fails when it comes to creating the user account with further attempts failing too.

Even after multiple, an that's at least 6+ attempts to do this the unit still thinks it's tied to his ID when it can clearly be seen in my Apple ID account along with my other products.

This is driving me to distraction so I would appreciate it if I can be told how I can successfully take ownership of this device, as at the moment it a bit of a paperweight.

Posted on Jul 17, 2021 2:14 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Bill_Moo Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 25, 2021 6:32 AM in response to K Shaffer

First off, thank you to all that took the time to reply. After much faffing around and searching I found this link here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252176974

This proved to be the fix I was needing and I now have a working Apple Silicon M1 MacMini.

So thanks again all of you for your time.

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Answer 2

K Shaffer

Level 8

35,284 points

Jul 23, 2021 3:42 AM in response to Bill_Moo

At some point you have to erase an existing system,

then use Silicon instruction to reinstall a new macOS.

So far, in certain ways, there's too much information.

• How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/HT204904

• How to erase a Mac with Apple Silicon - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/HT212030

• How to Factory Reset M1 Mac (MacBook Pro, Air, iMac, Mac mini)

https://osxdaily.com/2021/07/12/factory-reset-m1-mac/

"This is essentially reformatting the Mac and then reinstalling MacOS, a

process which is often necessary for users transferring ownership of a

Mac, sending the computer in for repair, or troubleshooting purposes."

To erase select the correct drive portion, is key to this.

Otherwise you might not remove all the earlier system.

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Answer 3

Jul 23, 2021 5:31 AM in response to Bill_Moo

There is yet another approach but requires a second Mac capable of running Apple Configurator 2

(available in the app store}:

Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon with Apple Configurator 2 - Apple Support

This is supposed to completely erase an M1 Mac (including all user data) and load with the current macOS.

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Answer 4

Rudegar

Level 10

173,352 points

Jul 18, 2021 12:26 AM in response to Bill_Moo

have you tried reading

What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

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Answer 5

Bill_Moo Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 18, 2021 8:19 AM in response to Rudegar

Thanks for your time Redegar.

I'm not going to lie I hadn't until you made reference to it. Most of the items had been done with the exception of the NVRAM but on reading further the article only applies to Intel, the Mac Mini we have here is the new Apple Silicon so are there equivalent instructions for this hardware?

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