adapting an i mac from a network to stand alone-how?

[fieryredhead]

My parents have recently been given an apple i mac. It used to be part of a network system at a company, and the hard drive has not been wiped (I mean it still has documents on there as well as the whole set up for the server, printers etc.) They are not at all computer literate, and have tried a variety of leads to get a printer to work on it with no success. It seems that there used to be another printer which is the 'server' for this printer. It's all very confusing! i think thier best bet is to somehow get back to square one with the computer and then reinstall the software etc. Is this a good option? ( I am also no computer expert!) Is it possible to do this without it costing vast sums of money? Is it possible to do this if you follow instructions if you are not knowledgable about computers? Any advise gratefully recieved!

[gary baldy]

Go to system preferences> network and follow the instructions
or
reinstall the OS (especially if you dont want to save anything that was still on the hard drive - although you may want to save some applications)
or
simply install the driver for your printer

[fieryredhead]

Thanks for the advice, the only problem with reinstalling the OS is that as they were given the computer they don't have this on disk. It is my understanding that the system is rather a lot of money (and as you can imagine if they have been given a computer they do not wish to spend any money!) is it possible to get it from anywhere else? They have already tried installing the driver for the printer- that doesn't work. Trying to discover why over the phone is rather difficult so I don't know why, but they assure me that it doesn't!

[gary baldy]

Do you know anyone else with a mac?
They will almost certainly have OS on disk .
There are several other things you can try but it is almost impossible for me to translate this into understandable language then pass this on to you and then for you to pass onto to your poor parents!
If you cant get hold of an OS disk you could get them to take it into a Mac shop (very rare i might add) and get them to do a clean up (might cost about �40).