Is there a way to see System Information before first user is added?
-
22-04-2021 - |
Question
I have a Mac that someone asks me to help them sell. They already wiped the hard drive and put a fresh installation of macOS on it. Upon boot, it's at the "Welcome" setup with no users intialized yet.
Is there an easy way to see the System Information and version of macOS currently installed on this machine without creating a new user? I'd like to leave this machine in a clean state without having to re-wipe the hard drive with a new installation.
Solution
The following assumes that the Recovery HD has the same version of macOS installed on the Macintosh HD for the accuracy of OS version information.
If you boot the Mac to Recovery Mode, you can access System Information from Terminal using the following command, e.g.:
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler
You might what to minimize the output and use and of the following options:
- -listDataTypes - Lists the available datatypes.
- -detailLevel level - Specifies the level of detail for the report:
- mini - Report with no personal information.
- basic - Basic hardware and network information.
- full - All available information.
To get just a Hardware: report, use:
- SPHardwareDataType
Example:
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType
On my system the outout of the above command was:
Hardware:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B12
SMC Version (system): 2.3f36
Serial Number (system): <Information omitted for security reasons.>
Hardware UUID: <Information omitted for security reasons.>
Notes:
To boot to the Recovery HD, press CommandR when booting the Mac. See also About macOS Recovery
Also, have a look at the manual page for system_profiler
If you want to just get information for some of the -listDataTypes
listed, you can add each on the command line, e.g.:
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType SPSoftwareDataType
The system_profiler
command can be run directly from single-user mode, by pressing CommandS when booting the Mac, without having to provide the fully qualified pathname, however depending on how much information you want from system_profiler
, you may need to pipe the output to more
to less
, etc., as scrolling in single-user mode is not as easy as from Terminal when booted to the Recovery HD.
That said, if all you want is the basic output shown under Hardware: and Software: from using the system_profiler
command, then use the following command in single-user mode:
system_profiler SPHardwareDataType SPSoftwareDataType
Note that the software info from single-user mode is that which is install on the Macintosh HD, unlike from the Recovery HD it's that of the OS X Base System and while it should be the same, it may not. The hardware info is accurate in either case.
OTHER TIPS
In my case system_profiler
would not load (Abort trap: 6), and sw_vers
only shows the OS version. I needed the processor, memory and disk details.
Boot into Recovery Mode, holding Command+R at boot. Then go into Utilities
> Terminal
Processor
$ sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz
Memory
$ sysctl -n hw.memsize
17179869184
16 GB RAM = 17179869184 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024
Disk Space
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk1 (internal):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme 500.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 500.0 GB disk0s2
500 GB
Easy - boot to single-user mode and then shut down.
- Hold S key while booting (if you miss when the chime starts and the setup assistant runs - quit and shut down).
- When the black screen shows white text - wait for it to stop and type
sw_vers
. - Once you’ve recorded the information, type
halt
.
You can use sw_vers
in any mode. Its output looks like this:
$ sw_vers
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.13.1
BuildVersion: 17B1003
The best way to do this and to access everything you would otherwise see in System Information is to boot into single-user mode by holding Command + S while booting up. Once you see the white-on-black text, you'll then want to then input:
system_profiler -listDataTypes
This will give you a list of all the different 'DataTypes' or more simply what type of information you can choose to see, very similar to how it's displayed in the System Information app. If, for example, you want to then see battery cycle information, you could then enter:
system_profiler SPPowerDataType
It will then print the Battery Information along with Cycle Count to the screen.
Replacing SPPowerDataType
in that previous statement with any of the other listed DataTypes will also return relevant information.
The following is the easiest way I've found to do this:
First boot to the welcome screen, then open the apple menu at the top left (it is hidden until you move the mouse there). Once it is open hold down the option key and "About This Mac" will change to "System Information" which will open the normal system profiler.
Strangely even though "About This Mac" is there you cannot open it.
- Enter recovery mode:
- Intel: by pressing Cmd ⌘ + R when powering on
- M1: just press the "power on" button and keep it pressed until you see recovery options, then choose "Options"
- Open
Utilities
>Terminal
- Type following:
$ sysctl hw.physicalcpu hw.logicalcpu machdep.cpu.brand_string hw.memsize $ diskutil info disk0
Where:
hw.physicalcpu
is number of coreshw.logicalcpu
is number of threadsmachdep.cpu.brand_string
is CPU model infohw.memsize
is RAM size in bytes, just divide it by 1024^3Device / Media Name
is drive hardware name (device name)Disk Size
actual physical disk sizeProtocol
will bePCI-Express
even for NVME disks, don't worry
Based on @user3439894 and @nate-pinchot answers, you can also try:
$ chroot /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD bash
$ system_profiler SPHardwareDataType SPSoftwareDataType SPPowerDataType
there will be more info, like:
Model Identifier
Serial Number
System Version
Cycle Count
In case if you using FileVault this way requires you to unlock startup disk first: After entering Recovery, login into admin user, then press > Startup disk
> Choose Macintosh HD
> Remove protection
> Type your password > Click "Startup drive" > Quit