help need admin user

biianca

Registered
I bought a used i book and i dont have admin privileges. i dont have and install cds either. my thing is how do i get admin privileges. i have a osX 10.1.5 also is their somewhere that i can find reinstall cds? or is their a way i can get my privileges through terminal?
 
You're going to need install CDs unless you're REALLY savvy with UNIX's command-line, and even then I don't know of any easy way to do it.

It's best to get some install CDs so that you can wipe the computer clean and start fresh with your own files, rather than someone else's.
 
There is a unix way. When you boot he machine hold down apple-S which will take you into single user mode and give you a command prompt. From there you can mount he drive read write and change your password in netinfo. I know there is directions for this out there but I am in a bit of a rush and can't find them right now.
 
you need to mount your drive read/write. When you first boot into single user mode, it is mounted as read only, which is why you can do the file system check above, even though that is your boot disk.
mount -uw /

Run Systemstarter and then get list of users from NetInfo.
/sbin/SystemStarter
niutil -list . /users

Choose your username from the list you got above, and plug it in below where I have the word username.
passwd username
You will be asked to enter a new password twice.

Reboot your computer.
shutdown -r now
 
If his user account is not an admin account, all that would do
is change the password - it would not give him admin level privileges.

If he successfully guesses which user name IS the admin user,
then he may be able to reset the password to that specific account.
 
You should be able to create an admin level user in
single user mode using the following command(s):


First, type fsck -yf to make sure the disk has no errors,

then type in:

mount -uaw and press enter

followed by:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press enter

then type: reboot and press enter

After rebooting, the same screen that comes up after a new
install will appear and prompt you to set up a new account.
This will be an admin account.
 
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