Changing Admin username/password - help!

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Ollyollyoly

Registered
Hi everyone,

Ok firstly apologies for my ignorance. I'm a Network Administrator but know NOTHING about Macs having had no previous experience with them.
First let me tell you the back ground to this question:
I'm actually trying to help out my girlfriend. Due to the economic crisis, her company has just laid off nearly every employee (except 3!) including the entire IT team. Unfortunately it appears that nothing was documented very well and none of the remaining employees know the admin passwords to their macbooks - nobody has install rights on their machines. So they have asked me for advice.

Desperate to gain install rights on her machine, my girlfriend followed these instructions (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1274) in order to 'reset' the admin user's password, thinking she could then use that to login and install stuff. Sounds like a good idea!

Problem is that now when she boots up the machine is asking her for a login name and password (where it previously didn't). I've tried 'administrator' and the password she entered, but to no avail. Is there a 'default' username, or is the problem bigger than that!?

Apologies for the vagueness here but a: I don't know my way round a Mac and b: my girlfriend is a bit vague about what she actually did!!!

Thanks
 
So I'm assuming she did this through the start-up disk in the reset password utility. Did she select the correct user and then hit the save button after she made the change? Maybe it did go through but she just doesn't know the username. The reason its coming to a log-in screen now is because sometimes after changing the password in this fashion, it will disable automatic login. If you go to the start-up disk again and reset password. Click on the drop-down list for the users. Make sure you have the correct username. Restart back to login screen, enter that user and the new password, and hopefully that will let you back in. If not go through the process again and remember to write down the username and click save after making the changes. Once you are in successfully, automatic logic can be set back up in system preferences/accounts.
 
Thanks for your reply - yes thats what (she says) she did. My thoughts exactly - I presume auto login was disabled as a result of changing the pwd so simply go and reset the pwd again on the user. Problem now though is when I go to the password reset screen, there are NO users in the drop down menu. It 'appears' that all users have been deleted. Any ideas??
 
Wow! The best I can think of without having another mac to firewire to and check for user folder for any users is to enable root in the reset password utility. That way you should be able to login and poke around to see whats happening. Be EXTREMELY CAREFUL while logged in as root. Then when done with root, go back and disable it again.
 
Problem solved!
Firstly - I tried to enable root but couldn't do that either. I think the reason would appear to be some sort of corruption the the user details - but i didn't have ANY users listed OR a Root admin (even once enabled).

Anyway, in order to fix the problem, I deleted the 'applesetupdone' and then restarted. I could then create a new administrator and login. Once logged in I could access all user files / desk top items etc - brilliant!

For anyone with similar issues, here's how I did it:

1. Restart the computer in Mac OS X single user mode by holding Command-S at startup.

Mount the computer's drive for read/write access. To do so, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press Enter:

# mount -uw /

Remove the file that identifies that the initial run of the "Mac OS X Setup Assistant" has been completed, with this command at the command prompt, followed by Enter:

# rm /var/db/.applesetupdone

Restart the computer by entering this command, followed by Enter.

# reboot

Once you reboot the apple start up wizard will kick in and talk you through creating a new user.

I suggest you check out the apple support website for more info before doing this - just search for 'applesetupdone'.

Thanks for your help all
 
Ollyollyoly said:
Problem solved!

I suggest you check out the apple support website for more info before doing this - just search for 'applesetupdone'.

Thanks for your help all
Click to expand...

Oh yeah! I forgot I had to use a technique similar to that to get around a corrupted filevault account. I've also seen that in other posts here on the forums. Glad it worked out for you and thanks for getting back with us and letting us know!
 
What if you're not able to reboot your computer?

I have a resolution problem AND a admin username/password problem.

Everytime I restart my computer, the screen is completely black.
After about 10min, it goes to sleep.
When I move the mouse, it wakes up and everything is fine BUT
my mouse cursor is replaced by these blurry stripes AND
my admin username and password do not work! :(

If I want to change my username and password I need to change the screen resolution,
If I want to change my screen resolution, I have to change my username & password.

PLEASE HELP!
 
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