Mac Mini OS X Lion remote rescue / recovery problem

It says "select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X", but it's a blank white box, no drive is showing.
It's a mac mini from cowboom. They (or someone) wiped (but hopefully not swiped) the HD, I believe.

What do I need to do?

This is where you connect to the LAN and then press Cntrl & R and it's supposed to reinstall OS X Lion, just in case it's not clear from my first post.

My first experience with a mac here.

Took me a while just to figure out that the mac control key maps to the windows key on a microsoft keyboard...

Take a look at the following:
http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

Without a more detailed description of what's happening it's hard to help. Referencing pictures in the links above to describe what you see could be helpful if you can't describe more thoroughly. If you can try to launch disk utility as it will help you figure out the state of the hard drive.

Quote from jkee : Take a look at the following: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 Without a more detailed description of what's happening it's hard to help. Referencing pictures in the links above to describe what you see could be helpful if you can't describe more thoroughly. If you can try to launch disk utility as it will help you figure out the state of the hard drive.

Yep, it displays the screen in your first link. I select "Reinstall Mac OS X". Then it tells me to slect the drive I want to install it on and there is a white box in which it attempts to display the available drives (I would think) but no drives ever show up.

But no error message either. Like I said, I'm new to Macs, but I would accept at least something like "Dude, I can't find your drive, man" or "Major bummer Dude, unable to access or read your drive".
I think even Loss 7 would give "unknow error 0987dtr#r23457H".

Quote from jkee : Take a look at the following: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 Without a more detailed description of what's happening it's hard to help. Referencing pictures in the links above to describe what you see could be helpful if you can't describe more thoroughly. If you can try to launch disk utility as it will help you figure out the state of the hard drive.

I am not sure what you mean by a more detailed description? The computer is telling me to pick a drive onto which I want to install the OS and it is showing a rectangular light gray box from which (it seems very clear) I am supposed to pick a drive, but no drives appear in the box nor is there an error code along the lines of "no drives found".
Is there a way to querry the computer for more details?

If there is nothing on the hard drive and i don't have an installation disk, is there still a way to access the disk utility?
If yes, how? For example, can I use another computer (only windows computers available) to download it onto a USB drive from somewhere?

Select Disk Utility on the first screen. That will show you if you have a hard drive installed and how it's formatted / partitioned. I think we can assume you have a hard drive and that it just isn't partitioned / formatted appropriately (the recovery partition seems to be functioning). How long did you leave it on the screen where it asks you to select a drive? It could take a little bit before the drive shows up, I would hope it doesn't

I just wanted you to better articulate the "blank white box" which could have been multiple things, it wasn't clear to me if you got to a screen like that one in that first image.

You can also go to the Utilities menu and choose System Profiles to view other info about the computer.

Make sure the Mac Mini is connected to the internet, preferably by an ethernet cable.

See also http://www.macworld.com/article/1..._mode.html

Yes, OK, the disk utility was right on the screen.
It is connected to the internet via a LAN cable.
I let it look for the disk (or partition) to load the OS onto for a few hours but it never found one.
I can get into the disk utility but I can't make heads or tails of it.

Quote from GunMan : I can get into the disk utility but I can't make heads or tails of it.

Take a picture of your computer screen and post it or search for tutorials and guide on the internet about using disk utility.

Do you plan on using Boot Camp to also boot some flavor of Microsoft Windows?

Take a look at this: http://macs.about.com/od/applicat...typart.htm
and the second link in my first post

You care the most about the column on the left where all drives and volumes (partitions, indented shown below drives) will show up. Click on both the drive and volume (if a volume exists) and note what changes on the screen.

Damn, all the options appear to be blocked (light gray). It won't let me partition, or erase.

On the left it shows a "disk0" and under that s "Mac OS X Base System".

for "disk0" it says:
Disc description: Apple disc image
Connection bus: Disk image
Total capacity: 1.53GB
Disk Write Status: read/write
Partion map scheme: apple partition map

For "Mac OS X Base system" it says:
Mount point: /
Format: Mac OS Extended
Ownerd Enabled: Yes
Number of folders: 8,202
Capacity: 1.53 GB
Available 379,9MB
Used: 1.15GB
Number of Files: 28,048

Is disk0 the "rescue partition"?
Is disk0 (1.53GB) part of the hard drive or ROM? In other words, does seeing the 1.53GB disk0 mean that it is definitely "talking" to the hard drive (there is a HDD in the system, but I have not verified that the connectors are prorperly connected, the hard drive is not super easy to get at.

I don't know what to partion as the only thing I'm seeing on the left is only 1.5GB? I should be seeing 500GB of available space, no?


When I click on "disk0" and then click on "Partition", I'm supposed to "Use the dropdown menu under the Volume Scheme heading to select the number of partitions you wish to create on the selected hard drive.", but no such dropdown menu exists, as far as I can see.

Becasue I am seeing 1.53GB of disk space, does that automatically mean that the system is talking to the HD (even if it's not showing more of it to me)? Or is there 1.5GB of ROM that contains the "rescue parttion"? I assume NOT, just for cost reasons alone?

There has to be something wrong with this, there is no way that a Mac, given it's reputation, shoud be this unintuitive...

In that left hand column, there should be something above disk0 and "Mac OS X Base System" as neither of those is actually the physical disk, please click on that! A picture of your computer screen would be handy to be certain of what you're seeing.

You shouldn't be too surprised that it takes more work to get a 3rd party refrub system up and running. Had you purchased a computer refurbished by apple, it would have arrived with OS X already re-installed.

In the image at the top at this link (which is page 3 of the last link I gave you): http://macs.about.com/od/applicat...part_3.htm
The actual disk drive is selected and the partition tab is active, please try to do the same and post what is says at the bottom and in the main part of the window. Again a picture's worth a thousand words.

Again it seems like you're seeing the rescue partition or other hidden partitions on the drive and no partition for the main portion of the drive, as such we need to confirm that and then re-partition.

Quote from jkee : In that left hand column, there should be something above disk0, please click on that! A picture of your computer screen would be handy to be certain of what you're seeing. You shouldn't be too surprised that it takes more work to get a refrub system up and running. Had you purchased a computer refurbished by apple, it would have arrived with OS X already re-installed.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing that I can click on except "Info", which is well above disk0.

So disk0 is a partition of the (500GB) HDD, right? (Meaning that the system is at least talking to the HDD)

I don't have software on the Mac to do a screen shot. I will have to take a picture and then post it here or post a link to it, I think.

Not surprised that it takes work, although no way would my company ship anything in this state without mentioning it in the listing.
I am surprised that a Mac is not offering more information/guidance regarding the restore as it should not be unclear to a well designed system that I attempted to restore it, after all I deliberately held down CNRTL + R (unless something is wrong with the system), so far my "user experience" has been at least as crappy as with any of the worst offerings that I have encountered from microsoft. That does thoroughly suprise me.