Serious open firmware password problem

L

lucasraggers

Rotterdam
During the upgrade from 7B74 to panther on the iMac 700 flatpanel of my brother something went very very wrong (before I got to the installer). Now he reflects only a folder with a question mark. We can't get any further than that. We have already done the following:
- does not start on any boat-able cd,
- does not start up from iPod with Panther on it,
- target mode does not work,
- nvram reset does not work,
- remove all ram and battery does not work

All this seems to relate with the open firmware password which is locked because when I press ALT, I see
a lock icon.

I searched the internet and it appears we should reset the firmware password by starting up with apple-option-O-F. Then we must type 'reset-nvram' and then he asks for a password. But we do not have this password. The login password of my brother doesn't work.

Who knows a solution for this serious problem?
 
How to troubleshoot a computer with Open Firmware Password enabled

Follow these steps:

1. Start up into Open Firmware by pressing and holding the Command-Option-O-F key combination during startup.
2. At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-nvram
3. Press Return.
4. When prompted for your password, enter it and press the Return key.
It responds OK.
5. At the Open Firmware prompt, type: reset-all
6. Press Return.

The computer restarts and you are now be able to reset the PRAM and startup in Single-user mode, Verbose mode, or from CD-ROM.

If you still encounter problems with O-F password, pull the battery out, and leave out overnight, reinstall, and re-try the above steps.
 
That's what we wanted to do but "when prompted for your password, enter it" is difficult when I don't have that password.

But we haven't left out the battery for a longer period of time.
 
lucasraggers said:
That's what we wanted to do but "when prompted for your password, enter it" is difficult when I don't have that password.

But we haven't left out the battery for a longer period of time.
Click to expand...

The O-F password is not the same as your login password (unless the O-F password is acutally supposed to be the same - whoever set up the Open-Firmware password should know)

The Open Firmware Password can be reset and changed by any one of the following:

1. By any Admin user, as designated in the users pane of System Preferences (or in Server Admin).
2. Via physical access to the inside of the computer.
3. When the computer is started up in Mac OS 9.
#2 should mean a battery removal and pressing the PMU reset button (small button close to the battery location)

I have read that the Open Firmware password does not always work well with a non-English keyboard.
Was File Vault master password setup in Panther?
 
Problem solved. We took out the battery for quite a while. Connected min and plus from the battery holder. Put the iMac together. PMU reset by holding the powerbutton. Immediately after that we resetted PRAM (apple-option-P-R) three times. It booted from the harddisk as if nothing had happened.
 
I've had some trouble getting the iLamps to forget OF password with the typical access to the internals solution. Other machines have reset as described in the documentation, but iMac was persistent. Good to know that it can be done, even if it takes a while. Keeps me from fearing that one of my users is going to defeat the security in the blink of an eye. :)
 
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