On 10/22/17 11:22 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
Got a ten year old iMac sittin' here , my d-i-l wants me to
wipe it and reset to as-new for my grandson . Problem is
that I know nothing about Apple comps and can't find much
info online about one this old . Any Apple users out there
care to help ?

First off, a good place to look for info is:
http://forums.macrumors.com/

Unless it's one of the last PowerPC iMacs (called the g5),
it should have an Intel processor in it.

Is it a "white colored" iMac or one of the first "aluminum"
ones?

You can find out what version of the OS is on it by going to
"About this Mac" directly under the Apple menu.

We need to know just which iMac before recommending an OS.
Again, go to "About this Mac", and see if it offers you
"more info" (or go to the Utilities folder in the
Applications folder, and look for Apple System Profiler).
Open the System Profiler.
Look at the "hardware overview".
Look at "Model identifier". It should say something like
"iMac6,x"
What is that number?
It identifies exactly what you have.

If it's a 2007 (white) model, you can use up to OS 10.7 "Lion".
If it's a 2008 (aluminum) or later, you could use OS 10.8
"Mountain Lion".
Either would do well to revive it.
On the 2008, it might even run OS 10.11 "El Capitan". But
Mountain Lion will run better.

Did the place you got it from give you any System DVD's?
If not, sometimes you can get the OS software from Apple,
but for an older Mac, this might not be possible.
In that case, I can think of two ways to get a copy of the
OS installer you need:
- ebay. Some folks will sell you a USB flashdrive with the
OS installer pre-installed. Just boot and install
- the torrents. When one can't find what one needs anywhere
else, one does what one has to do.

More recent Macs can do something called "internet
recovery", but yours is too old.
Forget that, won't work.

It's not really all that hard to erase the internal drive,
then put a clean copy of the OS and basic applications onto
it -- IF one knows what to do. The Mac is different from the
Windows world in that respect.

What I would do if you put it into my hands (I've been a Mac
user for 30 years, don't touch Windows):
1. Download the OS installer I needed. THIS HAS TO BE DONE
ON THE MAC, you can't do it on a PC
2. Get a USB flash drive (should be 16gb) and create a
bootable flash drive installer
3. Boot from the flash drive (reboot and hold down the
option key immediately, and keep holding it down until the
startup manager appears -- then click on the USB drive to
select it and hit return)
4. Use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and run
"repair disk" on it a few times for good measure
5. Use the installer to install the OS
6. When the installer is finished, you should be presented
with the setup screen. At this point, create a user account
and password.
6a. If it's "for kids", you should create an administrative
account for yourself, and then create "standard"
(NON-administrative) accounts for each of the kids.

Hope this gets you going.