Donated Mac won't boot...

[AJWhite1970]

Morning all. Never thought I'd be posting in this forum, its been 15 years since I last dealt with a Mac!!!!!

 

A parent has donated a Mac to the school which is meant to have 10.6.8 installed on it. However when I switch it on all I get is this screen which to my limited knowledge looks like it's been drive wiped and not restored afterwards?

 

 

As I have no disks or documentation with it is there anything I can do to rectify this or have I inherited a large shiny door stop?

Cheers

Andrew

[FN-GM]

Try this out

 

How to start up your Mac in Internet Recovery Mode

 

Thanks

[Steve21]

The other option is there's a button to hold down when you start that allows you to pick a partition to boot from, as sometimes if it was bootcamped etc it might just be looking at the wrong one, and the osx is still there etc

 

Steve

[3s-gtech]

If you can access another Mac, it's relatively straightforward. If not, Internet Recovery came along in Lion so that may not have been installed/updated (and won't work if the Mac doesn't support Lion). Otherwise you may need a 10.6 disc, or another Mac to download the installer through the store. Not a paperweight yet!

[robsonma]

Yes that error is normaly Hard Drive or no OS. hold the Command and R keys simultaneously on your keyboard as soon as you hear the familiar startupchime. Keep holding as your Mac boots

[SamanthaD]

If you want a bootable USB creating give me a shout - looks like we're neighbours!