Problems trying to recover password on Mac OS 10.3.3

T

timmers

Registered
Hey guys,

i've browsed through the forums for an answer to this and have tried many of the posted solutions to no avail. maybe someone can come up with something.

My uncle bought a used IBook from a liquidation warehouse. Its using Mac OS 10.3.3 and we're able to boot into the system but unable to modify it as the account we log into isn't high ranked enough. not enough priviledges.

we wento the local store and bought Mac os x tiger and wanted to format the laptop to it. we aren't able to boot from DVD (as its a cdrom) so we got a cd from the store. and still can't get it to boot off the disc.

i've tried my unix skills a bit.. and tried to reset passwords that way. to no avail... i'm pretty stuck here. any ideas?

we have a external dvd-burner too.. but it won't boot off that either.
 
Apple offers a trade-in program to exchange the DVD for a set of CDs that should boot the iBook.

What kind of CD was it that you tried to boot off of at the local store? Was it a copy, or an original, retail disk?
 
oh. misread. yah. the store gave mea copy of tiger on cd.. it wouldn't boot.... yeah. i can send it back to apple for a cd version.. i would hope that would help. right now.. we're pretty much regrettin buying this laptop at a liquidation sale.. we can't do anything with it.
 
There are several things to look at here. If your laptop has a root password setup you will have some difficulty in upgrading/getting rid of it. Otherwise you should be able to reset the admin password with the cd. The first thing I would try is to check in System Preferences to see if your account is the Admin account, as well as if there are any other accounts present. If there are, thats the first problem. You could also try creating a new Admin Account if it lets you, then deleting the old ones. If there is a root password (you can find it in NetInfo Manager - under Security (it should say in grey -disable root account).

I believe that you can start the computer up in Target Disk Mode (hold T when you start up the laptop) and connect it to another mac using a firewire cord (6 pin). This makes it basically like an external hard drive. More importantly permissions can be over-ridden.

Then you can use the Tiger install cds to format/erase (you can use the built-in disktool) and reinstall the whole system. I think if you "upgrade" that way you will not reset any of the passwords so you will have wasted about an hour or so.

Of course you still need another mac but... that should work.
 
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