My first work computer!

[dandeco]

After two years I just found this thread. So where do you sell these things and how many of these keyboards can I buy?

View attachment 2073370

Here is our online store...

| eBay

 

[dandeco]

My workspace is starting to look kind of like an Apple Genius Bar again...

In addition to all those iPads, we also got a whole lot of Mac Minis and MacBooks for me to test, wipe and reset.

On each Mac Mini, first I wipe it using our DOS-based KillDisk software loaded onto a USB thumb drive. Many of the 2010 unibody Minis had a firmware lock, but because they're pre-2011 models, it was all a matter of removing a RAM module and zapping the NVRAM three times. They came with 5 GB of RAM loaded, so I'd remove the 1 GB sticker so each one would be listed online with 4 GB. It takes hours for each one, but the results are worth it. Then afterward I install the highest MacOS version they'll support...

Today I finally finished with the 48 mid-2010 Mac Minis, all with their hard drives fully wiped and then formatted with Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra. Now I've moved onto a batch of 2014 Mac Minis; they're all finished with the drive-wiping process, and now I am installing Mac OS 12 Monterey onto them. It does run longer than the High Sierra install, but it's indeed worth it.
I've also worked on fixing up and putting freshly-wiped drives into unibody polycarbonate MacBooks.

 

[dandeco]

Got a HUGE load of Apple stuff for me to work on this month!

I think I'm almost two-thirds of the way through the Macs now, and still have more iPads to get through.

Of course, there were some 11" MacBook Airs in the lot; I had to pop an SSD into each one and wipe to install Mac OS 12 Monterey onto.

The lot also included several 2006-07 Mac Mini desktops. KillDisk won't work on them, so I have to pop a Mac OS X Leopard install DVD into each one and do a 7-pass wipe of the internal hard drive this way. Because they're so old, I don't bother installing a Mac OS version on them.

More unibody Mac Minis to wipe, all of them 2012-14 models. We managed to get a couple of the firmware passwords from the school district they came from (one of them even used a swear word!), so that helped a lot. But KillDisk wouldn't work on the 2014 Minis we got, because they came with Fusion Drives, so I had to multi-pass wipe them using Mac OS USB installers, along with a couple of 2012 Minis that also had Fusion Drives. The other 2012 Minis had regular hard drives that KillDisk operated on with no issue. The 2012 Minis we're listing with Mac OS 10.15 Catalina installed, and the 2014 Minis are coming with Mac OS 12 Monterey.

After that, I caught a cold from my mother, and so I had to call in sick for the first time since I've started working there. After I recovered a few days later and resumed the work...

We got a whole batch of 13" unibody MacBook Pros. I would load a freshly-wiped hard drive into each one and install the highest Mac OS version it supports (High Sierra for the 2010-11 Pros, Catalina for the 2012 Pros).

Here's a 2012 Retina 13" MacBook Pro also included in the lot. They had a weird placement of the SSD and an unusual size, but since we had a few available, installing an SSD and wiping it to re-install the Mac OS (Catalina) was no problem.

The Retina 13" Pro wiping and re-installing the Mac OS alongside a few 13" MacBook Airs from 2014 (those ones are installing Mac OS 11 Big Sur).

 

[Mr. Dee]

I would want a place like this to store all my vintage Macs. 😁

 

[dandeco]

A week and a half later, and I'm still working away on those iPads and Macs.

I set up one of those 13" unibody MacBook Pros we got in the lot of for one of my co-workers who's currently testing cameras and camcorders, and I let him know that with DV and Digital8 camcorders we also have to test the DV/IEEE-1394/FireWire port, since people may be buying the camcorders for that purpose (especially since we got a few Sony Digital8 camcorders that can play back analog Video-8/Hi-8 recordings; people will probably want to buy them for digitizing their old Video-8/Hi-8 tapes, like I do). Since it runs up to Mac OS 10.15 Catalina and I can't download the last-compatible version of iMovie for it, we test the DV output on the camcorders using the QuickTime Player.

This morning I even upgraded my 2017 iMac that I use for printing certain labels and for wiping iPads to MacOS 13 Ventura!

Obligatory shot of the new "About This Mac" screen.

A couple of broken-screen iPads I wiped and reset that had iPadOS 16 installed on them! I had to have Apple Configurator 2 download and install an update to do so, but it was worth it. I'm starting to run low on iPads here, but we're getting a large shipment of MacBook Airs from our satellite location this week, so I'm still gonna be busy here for quite some time.

 

[dandeco]

Oh wow, I can't believe as of today, I've been working with that company for two whole years now!

Last week, we completely re-arranged my workspace, so I had to spend part of a day pulling things out and finding things and getting other stuff set up. Now it seems to look even more like an Apple Genius Bar!

Usually I start each day with wiping four (sometimes five) Lightning-connection iPads at once as I refurbish/install on a MacBook at the same time.

This past Monday was Halloween, so I actually came to work in my fursuit that day! While it was fun, let's just say it was kind of tricky getting around in those big footpaws!

 

[RokinAmerica]

Very cool and congrats on 1 year. You seem to love what you do and that is huge to me (I love what I do too, 30+ years now). I will be watching this now since my hobby is tech. Great thread!

 

[dandeco]

Very cool and congrats on 1 year. You seem to love what you do and that is huge to me (I love what I do too, 30+ years now). I will be watching this now since my hobby is tech. Great thread!

Actually it's been two whole years now. I just made a typo in the last post.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I've no idea why I find this thread so entertaining! You do tell the story quite well so keep them repair adventures coming.

 

[dandeco]

Some more updates from my workplace over the past couple of months...

They often have me work on Apple keyboards. We get a LOT of wired ones, especially the numeric keypad types like here. And since Apple discontinued them, they should sell pretty well through our eBay store. (We find the older pre-2007 Apple keyboards more well-built than those aluminum ones, as I tend to find more faulty aluminum Apple keyboards than the older kind.)

A first-generation unibody 15" MacBook Pro from fall 2008! It already came without a hard drive, so I popped the appropriate 320 GB hard drive inside it (wiped and ready) and installed Mac OS X 10.11 "El Capitan" onto the drive. Recently I also worked on a bunch of 13" unibody MacBook Pros, mostly 2012 models but some 2011s as well. The late 2011s and the 2012s I would actually put 8 GB of RAM into, as that would definitely make them worth a bit more, in addition to the 500 GB hard drives I'd install the highest Mac OS it can support onto.

Here I am testing an Ion USB turntable we got in a lot of stuff! I actually brought in one of my LP records from home to test it with. Not a bad model, but it's too bad the only audio outputs are RCA and USB; no 3.5mm (headphone) jack. And it doesn't play 78-RPM records, and amazingly does not come with a 45-RPM spindle adapter! (Of course you could always use those plastic "spider" adapters for 45s.)

 

[dandeco]

More stuff from the past month...

Installing Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan on one of the original 15" unibody MacBook Pros from 2008! A freshly-wiped hard drive had been placed inside it for this install. It was the only one to have an easily-swappable battery like its' predecessors. (Subsequent unibody MacBook Pros CAN have the battery replaced, though Apple would advise against doing it; it's not that much different from replacing the hard drive.)

I've also been working on more 11" 2nd-generation MacBook Airs.

We recently got a device from a specialist that lets us remove firmware passwords from Intel MacBook Airs and Pros! On the 2013-15 MacBook Airs like this, it requires removing the logic board, but after a few such jobs, I can do it pretty quickly. (For privacy reasons, I am not saying where we got the device from.)

A couple of obsolete tapeless camcorder formats: mini-DVD and hard disk drive. Flash memory camcorders proved to be a lot better than these, since they use no moving parts, and bigger SD cards have gotten cheaper, and their video quality soon began to surpass these older formats (as back then, MiniDV and HDV tapes still offered superior quality, until the early 2010s when flash memory camcorders finally matched HDV quality enough for DV tape-based camcorders to be retired). DVD camcorders were especially a hassle; it took a long time to initialize and finalize each mini-disc, they had limited recording time (30 minutes, like a VHS-C cassette), and they had limited Mac compatibility to boot! (I never used one, but I've read about the problems with them, and I did have to deal with finalizing a mini-disc out of one I had to test at my workplace.)

Here I am wiping an Apple Time Capsule wi-fi router/backup HDD. It required having to set up a temporary wi-fi network just so I could erase the disk using AirPort Utility on the Mac OS and then doing a secure multi-pass wipe (company policies), and THEN I had to factory reset the Time Capsule again, but it was worth it.

This week I've been working on iPhones, along with some iPads and MacBook Airs. My workspace looks like a small Apple Genius Bar this way, except for the clutter.

And now I am on vacation for the next week!

 

[dandeco]

Recent updates from after my vacation...

A first-generation iPhone! They were a lot smaller (both physically and in flash storage size) and thicker. Amazing how this was what pretty much re-invented the Smartphone 16 years ago.

Here it is next to a 2nd-generation iPhone SE for comparison.

Semi-related, but here's when a raccoon got into our dumpster! It was sleeping when I took this photo. We set up a small ladder inside the dumpster for it to climb out with, which it did during the night.

Wiping early iPod Touches!

I also brought in my old Numark PT-01 USB record player that I used until 2018, which I then replaced with a Numark PT-01 Scratch. The AC adapter jack was loose and unstable, which is why we recycled it.

Our new in-house program we developed for running on Ubuntu for logging iOS devices! It's still got a few kinks to work out, but it's pretty neat.

We've been ramping up more on these 11" 2015 MacBook Airs, with me removing the logic board (I can now do it in just five to eight minutes) and a co-worker flashing/probing them to remove the firmware lock, after which I re-install the logic board, re-assemble the MacBook Air with an SSD installed inside, then install the highest Mac OS version it'll support (the highest these support is Mac OS 12 Monterey).
Currently my work schedule is set up so when said co-worker is in, we work on the MacBook Airs, and when he's not I work on iPads and iPhones. Nice to have some variety this way.

 

[Slix]

I'm not sure how I missed seeing this thread until now, but it's so cool! I do something similar for my job, and it's great to see we have like-minded methods for getting stuff wiped and reset.

If it helps, I recommend setting up a few small USB SSDs or flash drives that have multiple OS installers for each machine you might run into. I use High Sierra, Mojave, Big Sur, and Monterey currently, since that runs on anything that can boot from USB that isn't NetInstall compatible. For the others, I use a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server with 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.11 NetInstalls for the speed it provides for installing too.

I too have a newer iMac for Configurator for locked iPads/iPhones/iPod touches. I have a separate iMac running El Capitan to wipe iPods, since I had a lot of hit-or-miss experiences with the newer one and the Finder restoring.

We also use a machine that allows us to hot-swap internal HDDs and wipe them using KillDisk all at once, so we don't have to wait hours for individual computers to erase before reinstalling the OS on them. The wiped ones are then available to put into computers we work on.

Seeing all sorts of random computers and tech is so much fun. Excited to see more from your place!

 

[dandeco]

I'm not sure how I missed seeing this thread until now, but it's so cool! I do something similar for my job, and it's great to see we have like-minded methods for getting stuff wiped and reset.

If it helps, I recommend setting up a few small USB SSDs or flash drives that have multiple OS installers for each machine you might run into. I use High Sierra, Mojave, Big Sur, and Monterey currently, since that runs on anything that can boot from USB that isn't NetInstall compatible. For the others, I use a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server with 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.11 NetInstalls for the speed it provides for installing too.

I too have a newer iMac for Configurator for locked iPads/iPhones/iPod touches. I have a separate iMac running El Capitan to wipe iPods, since I had a lot of hit-or-miss experiences with the newer one and the Finder restoring.

We also use a machine that allows us to hot-swap internal HDDs and wipe them using KillDisk all at once, so we don't have to wait hours for individual computers to erase before reinstalling the OS on them. The wiped ones are then available to put into computers we work on.

Seeing all sorts of random computers and tech is so much fun. Excited to see more from your place!

Yep, I have multiple USB thumb drives with different Mac OS versions. I've got installers for El Capitan, High Sierra, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura.

 

[diggy33]

Ahhhh, this takes me back to the early days of my career. I had so much fun piecing machines together, testing to ensure everything worked, finding those old items that you didnt think you'd see again (I remember finding two iPhone 3GS in an envelope in a VP's office we were cleaning out). Where I work now they store a bunch of hardware in the warehouse and they let us go through things before disposing of them. I saved a 2006 MacBook that I just revived this morning, and a PowerBook G4 that I'm still working on.

 

[dandeco]

Last week I took my second vacation from my job; didn't go anywhere, but it was more of a "staycation" (two weeks out of the year I take the week off from work, to mentally recharge myself so I don't burn myself out on the job). Here a a few interesting pics from before that...

Watching the WWDC 2023 Keynote as I work back in June.

Lately I've started cloning 2.5" SATA hard drives with either a Mac OS 10.13 "High Sierra" or 10.15 "Catalina" system ready to be configured and installing the cloned drives into the appropriate unibody MacBook Pros. So far since many of them use 500 GB hard drives, that's what I am cloning. Once in a while a drive will have failed to clone properly, so I have to manually install the Mac OS onto it.

Last month, we got our first 12" MacBook! Given that Apple now considers the original model of them obsolete, it's not too surprising. The display on this is bad; it just shows a grayish screen. So I can't really tell what's on it; since the bezel is also damaged and it won't close all the way. I can't even use an external display (we have a few USB-C hubs to use with such computers) to see if there's anything still installed on it. (We have to make sure the on-board SSD is wiped before we can try to re-sell it or anything.)

Booting onto a 13" baseline 4th-generation MacBook Pro using an external hard drive with High Sierra installed, so I can get the exact specifications. The display on this was messed up, so we sold it for parts.

Among returning from my vacation, I was surprised to see we got some M1 MacBook Airs! Our first Apple Silicon Macs to recycle or resell, and nearly three years after the transition began. They came from a school district, and they still had remote management from said schools on them, and their screens were broken (hence being sent to us). We will contact the school district with the MacBook Airs' serial numbers so they can remove the enrollment, and then we can re-wipe their on-board SSDs and sell them for parts (even as being sold for parts, they should definitely be worth a decent amount of money!) It also proved my theory; some time back we got hundreds of 2nd-generation MacBook Airs from that same school district, and that was because they upgraded to M1 MacBook Airs as part of the Intel to Apple Silicon transition! And since a few of said M1 Airs had the screens broken, they sent us those to be recycled or resold.

Using the new "Erase All Content and Settings" feature when wiping the onboard SSDs.

We also recently got a lot of 2018 Space Gray Mac Minis from the same school district (probably upgraded to M2 Minis). On each one I remove the firmware password the district gave us for them, along with enabling the ability to boot from an external device. Wiping and resetting these Macs with the T2 security chip is a little longer than on older Intel Macs, but well worth the results. And at least they're still not managed, either.

 

[diggy33]

Man I miss the days of restoring/refurbishing machines. Do they allow you employees to purchase any of that stuff?

 

[dandeco]

Man I miss the days of restoring/redabbing machines. Do they allow you employees to purchase any of that stuff?

Yep! I've bought quite a few devices from them. And of course, here is our eBay store if anyone here wants to purchase anything from us! (A little publicity never hurts.)

Security Measure

www.ebay.com

 

[rampancy]

That looks like heaven. I would be over the moon if I could get a job at a place like that...

 

[bryo]

That sounds like a fun job. I have actually picked up big lots of old Macs from schools and done the same thing just on my personal eBay store. It’s a ton of work but it’s fun. Still have a bunch in my collection that I need to thin out. I would imagine selling iMacs locally is a lot easier. They are so expensive and awkward to ship. Laptops are much easier! Even done it for Mac ses. Sold a few after soldering in a battery holder for the clock and fixing/replacing dead hdds. There was one that was perfectly working with an hdd and floppy. I still kick myself as I should’ve kept it. It has someone’s school paper from 1989 on the hdd.

 

[dandeco]

Well, I have been working for this company for three years now! Here are some recent updates from the last two months...

To make sure they keyboard works fine, on each Mac laptop I can boot into via the Mac OS High Sierra or later installers, I go on Safari via the "Get Help Online" feature and go to the Keyboard Tester site to make sure all the keys work properly, similar to when I'd hook up external keyboards to my work MacBook Pro and go on the site to test said keyboards. If the built-in keyboard is good, then I can proceed with going further in my process (i.e. removing the battery if it's no good, or putting in a wiped hard drive/SSD for installing the Mac OS onto).

Last month, we got a 2018 Touchbar 15" MacBook Pro with a damaged screen. It already allowed external drive booting, so I was able to wipe the on-board SSD so we could sell it for parts. Compared to the SSDs used in 2nd-gen MacBook Airs and Retina MacBook Pros, these on-board Mac SSDs took a bit longer to wipe, probably because since they're onboard the wipe has to be more secure.

When wiping and resetting iPads via Apple Configurator 2, any models that support iPadOS 17 automatically have it installed!

Because this past Tuesday was Halloween, I came into work wearing one of my fursuits, as Sam Valentino the private toon detective fox! Unfortunately, my boss was out sick, so I only worked a half-day that morning, but my other co-workers enjoyed seeing my getup. (Especially because the weekend before, I was away at Furpocalypse in Stamford, CT, and I joked "I told you I'd look different among coming back from Furpocalypse!")

 

[dandeco]

Well, OCLP 1.2.1 decided to brick my 2015 Retina 15" MacBook Pro unless it's completely wiped! So with that out of commission, I've started bringing my M1 MacBook Air to work to use that its' place.

I've got Slack, the DYMO Label printing software, and a few of my other work applications installed on it, and at least it boots up quickly. A downside is that I often have to clean up the space from when it downloads iOS versions for the iPads I wipe in Apple Configurator 2. But for now it's largely a stopgap solution; if we get a 2018 or later Intel MacBook Pro that's in good usable condition and isn't still remotely managed by a school district or whatever, I'll start using that as my work MacBook.

 

[dandeco]

Been a while, but I've still been busy with the company!

We got a couple of AirPort Time Capsules, and in addition to wiping and resetting the network profiles, the internal hard drive requires a Mac to wipe. Since the iMac I used to use was put into storage to save space, I set up a 13" unibody 2012 MacBook Pro for such a purpose; I'd plug the Time Capsule into the Mac via Ethernet, create a temporary network profile (with the name "DO NOT USE"), and then do a 7-pass wipe on the built-in hard drive, since the law requires our company to do such a secure wipe when erasing hard drives. And since it can take hours, I usually have it start before the end of my shift, and then when I return the next time I punch in, I unplug the freshly-wiped Time Capsule, re-reset the network settings to remove the temporary network, and label it as wiped and reset, ready to be listed on our eBay store!

This week, one of the school districts in the area released the remote management on the Apple and Google devices we got from them (I'd log the serial numbers on the Apple devices so we can send them to the district). So I got started on the 2018 i3 Mac Minis we got from said district (no doubt they replaced them with Apple Silicon Mac Minis).

With a couple of them, I was able to boot them into Recovery Mode, re-install the Mac OS (Mojave), create a temporary user profile, re-boot the Mini into Recovery Mode and use that to disable the firmware password the district gave us and enable booting from external drives and such. Then I re-wipe the on-board SSD and re-install the highest Mac OS version it'll support. This is my standard procedure for Intel Macs with the T2 chip we get (which isn't that often, but I'm sure we'll be getting more in the foreseeable future) I wipe, reset and test. It's twice as long compared to older Intel Macs without the T2 chip, but well worth the results and it keeps me busy!

When rebooting them into Internet Recovery after that initial Mac OS reinstall, they may need the firmware updated, in order to ensure the newest Mac OS installer works.

I even managed to create a couple of MacOS Sonoma USB installers as part of this! (Naturally, they are version 14.4.1.)

But on several of them, they didn't have a local Recovery Mode, or it couldn't connect to the Mac OS installer server due to Mojave being over five years old. After a Google search, I found in these cases, I have to boot the Mac Mini into DFU mode, connect it to a Thunderbolt 3-enabled Mac (in this case, I'm using my M1 MacBook Air) and select "Revive Device". It does the trick, even updating the firmware in the process.

Once they've been "revived", I can have two of them wiping and resetting at once, and the Internet Recovery Mode will even use a Sonoma installer for them. I still have to wipe and re-install the Mac OS twice on them to ensure they're still not managed and to remove the firmware password and enable external drive booting, but it's well worth the results!

 

[aries81]

I'd get massively confused with all that clutter, but hey, you seem to do just fine! 😊👍

 

[dandeco]

Here's me reviving and restoring an early 2020 Retina MacBook Air. So far, I've only had luck with getting one all wiped, re-installed and ready for resell, since I have to use Internet Recovery to install the MacOS on a T2 chip-equipped Mac to check if it's still managed, change the security settings to enable booting from an external drive, then wipe the drive and re-install the MacOS (i.e. the highest version it'll support). The other three I've been working on, I've had no luck with getting Internet Recovery to load onto them. I wonder if it has something to do with the drive not being initialized, and/or the battery apparently being dead.

The one Retina Air I've had success with so far.

I was able to get another to load the Internet Recovery Mode and start installing the MacOS. Since this one has a 512 GB SSD, I may consider using this one as a work computer, for running the latest version of Apple Configurator 2 and any future reviving and restoring of Macs with T2 chips, now that my 2015 Retina 15" MacBook Pro can't run the latest Apple Configurator and doesn't have Thunderbolt 3. (For now I have to bring my M1 MacBook Air into work for this.) But the first attempt at this, it hung at "Less than a minute remaining..." while the status bar was nearly halfway through. This second attempt after resetting the NVRAM and SMC and rebooting the Air, I started the second part of the install a little over and hour from posting this, and the bar went all the way to the end, but it's still seeming to hang there. I'm gonna let it sit this way through most of my shift to see what happens next. If it's not done anything before I punch out, I will reset the NVRAM and SMC, and reboot the Air again and see if that does anything overnight.